# [SOLVED] USB Keyboard/Mouse Don't Work in WinXP



## Stupidscript (Nov 1, 2011)

I realize there are several threads that include something like this (or exactly like this), however those threads have either died without getting an answer or have answers that do nothing in my situation. Sorry for that, but I really need to find out if anyone has ANY ideas for fixing this.

*Windows XP Professional SP3, fully patched*

As of last Thursday, everything was working normally. Then, Friday morning, my user booted their computer and had no USB keyboard or mouse.

Motherboard has NO PS/2 ports ... everything is USB (except LAN, sound, etc.)

The only video card contains 2 DVI outputs.

*>> Potential Problem? <<*

Normally, the user has two monitors plugged into the DVI ports. I am only plugging in a single monitor.

Could this affect the USB circuit w/regard to XP?

*>> Symptoms: <<*

1) Using any USB keyboard/mouse (including wireless and wired), I have no problems in the BIOS or using any Live CD (including Ubuntu 10.10, Fedora 12, WinXP Ultimate Boot Disk, Seagate DiscWizard, etc.)

2) During normal boot, as soon as the Windows XP logo appears, the lights go out on the mouse. The "numlock" light remains lit on the keyboard, but toggling the "numlock" key does nothing ... the light stays lit.

3) Once booted, both conditions persist ... the mouse and keyboard are non-functional and the "numlock" light stays lit.

4) Plugging/unplugging/plugging/unplugging makes no difference using any of the 12 USB ports on the system.

5) When I unplug/plug the mouse into any of the USB ports, its light flashes briefly and then goes out ... non-responsive.

6) Same symptoms in Normal Boot, Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Command Prompt and Last Known Good.

7) USB thumb drives and other peripherals won't do anything. Using wireless keyboard and mouse, though, the USB sensor does flash with activity ... but Windows sees no activity ... so power IS getting to the USB circuit, otherwise the sensor would not flash at all.

*>> Some Stuff I Did <<*

1) After backing up all user data to a USB peripheral drive under Ubuntu, I used the WinXP UBCD to force all USB/HID services to start. They were set to "Manual", but I tried both "System" and "Boot" startup settings.

With the services set to start at "System", I rebooted into Windows XP normally and did receive notice that a new USB mouse and USB keyboard had been found, but neither one functions ... as before. No change with the services set to start at "Boot".

2) I also set all Microsoft HID services to start at "System" and "Boot", with no effect.

3) I checked for all of the other services I found Googling this issue ... Logitech stuff, SpySweeper stuff, other AV stuff ... but none exist.

4) I renamed all usb* drivers in system32/drivers and system32/dllcache so they would "break", and rebooted. Nothing. Windows didn't try to install anything. I still see the "New Hardware" icon in the systray, but there is no more notice about finding new gear. I also see Windows Update shield down there, with updates waiting to be downloaded.

5) Even though I wasn't having any problem in BIOS, I flashed them, anyway, and reset everything. No help once in Windows, though. Everything still works fine outside of Windows.

*6) The Biggie:* Using the Seagate DiscWizard boot disk, I restored the hard drive from the USB image. This wiped the entire drive, reformatted it, and dumped the disk image from the USB drive onto the fixed disc.

Rebooted into Windows XP on the restored drive ... no help. Even though I could use both the keyboard and the mouse while in Seagate's program (running from the CD), as soon as the Windows XP logo appeared during reboot ... lights out, and no USB devices.

I seriously do NOT want to start from scratch with reinstalling XP and getting all of the updates, programs and whatnot back into place, so if anyone has ANY suggestions for me, I would be MOST grateful for your help.

Ready to post more info, if you need it. TIA.


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## pip22 (Aug 22, 2004)

*Re: USB Keyboard/Mouse Don't Work in WinXP*

"_Normally, the user has two monitors plugged into the DVI ports. I am only plugging in a single monitor. Could this affect the USB circuit w/regard to XP?_"

I very much doubt it.

Try this: Go into Device Manager & uninstall all USB hubs (right-click > Uninstall).
Now restart Windows and Windows will re-install the hubs.


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## Stupidscript (Nov 1, 2011)

*Re: USB Keyboard/Mouse Don't Work in WinXP*

Thank you for your quick reply. Unfortunately, I do not have any keyboard or mouse, once Windows is dominant. There are only USB ports ... no PS/2 or anything else, and a PCI PS/2 card apparently operates within Windows' USB structure, so those don't work, either (tried it with two such cards, last night).

In order to use your suggestion, is there some way I could get into Device Manager outside of Windows, or within Windows, but without a keyboard or mouse?

Thanks, again. I really appreciate your time.


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

*Re: USB Keyboard/Mouse Don't Work in WinXP*

Can you boot into Safe Mode? If so, perform the action from there.

If not, try using system Restore to go back to a time before the problem appeared. If not, boot with an XP CD and perform a Repair. If not, a fresh install of the OS.


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## Stupidscript (Nov 1, 2011)

*Re: USB Keyboard/Mouse Don't Work in WinXP*



Dogg said:


> Can you boot into Safe Mode?


Yes, but neither keyboard nor mouse function in any XP mode, as noted.



Dogg said:


> If not, try using system Restore to go back to a time before the problem appeared.


Is there some way I can do that either (a) in Windows but without a keyboard or mouse or (b) from outside of Windows using a LiveCD?

Please note that I have already ... twice ... restored the disc from the Seagate backup disc image, formatting and repartitioning the drive both times. I imagine that was kind of similar to a Repair, but without all the hassle.



Dogg said:


> If not, boot with an XP CD and perform a Repair.


A Repair will bork most of my applications so that I would need to reinstall almost everything, not to mention grabbing all of the service packs and whatnot, all over again. I'd rather not do that, if I can help it.



Dogg said:


> If not, a fresh install of the OS.


Like I noted ... rather not.

It's like your car made a funny noise and the best mechanic you can find tells you that, yeah, Fords sometimes make that noise ... get a new car. Doesn't that sound a little extreme? I'm looking for an answer to the problem, not a "get a new car" solution.

Hell ... I'd be happy with a logical explanation of WHY it failed in the first place. That would seem to me to be a required ingredient in suggesting a fix, no?

Please ... denizens of Tech Support Forum ... show your chops and tell me Windows doesn't suck so bad that a re-install is the only way to fix this.


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## oscer1 (Jan 27, 2010)

*Re: USB Keyboard/Mouse Don't Work in WinXP*

you could try Ubuntu and run it from the disk and see if the mouse and keyboard works. 
Download | Ubuntu


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## Stupidscript (Nov 1, 2011)

*Re: USB Keyboard/Mouse Don't Work in WinXP*



oscer1 said:


> you could try Ubuntu and run it from the disk and see if the mouse and keyboard works.


As noted, both keyboard and mouse work with any LiveCD I have tried, including (but not limited to) Ubuntu 10.10, Fedora 12, WinXP/UBCD and Seagate DiscWizard.

The keyboard and mouse also work fine within the BIOS ...

The ONLY place they do NOT work is when the Windows installed on the hard drive takes over ... as SOON as that logo shows up, keyboard, mouse and any other USB peripheral are dead. It does not matter which USB port I use.


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## oscer1 (Jan 27, 2010)

*Re: USB Keyboard/Mouse Don't Work in WinXP*

sorry missed that


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## Stupidscript (Nov 1, 2011)

*Re: USB Keyboard/Mouse Don't Work in WinXP*

And the answer is ...

The system needs BOTH monitors plugged in in order for the USB keboard and mouse to work in Windows XP Professional.

That's the fact. I brought the system back to the user's house, last night, and, using my keboard and mouse and my monitor, we hooked up one of his monitors to the other DVI port and it was as if the issue had never happened.

We disconnected his monitor and re-booted ... no keyboard, mouse or any other USB device was functional.

Disconnected my monitor and hooked his two back up, re-booted ... normal USB functionality.

Weirdest thing I have ever seen.

ATI Radeon x1900 XTX video card (PCI Express/512MB)

I don't know if it's specific to that card or what, but I had been put onto that idea by seeing how messed up multiple monitors are in various Windows systems. Somewhere during my troubleshooting I had read a single comment about how a video card had caused issues with USB, but who would of thought?

Happy Holidays!

Go figure.


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## oscer1 (Jan 27, 2010)

thanks for posting back the solution, would never of thought of that. kinda hard to believe.


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## Stupidscript (Nov 1, 2011)

Seriously. Outside of the box, for sure.

Nearest I can come is to think that the video subsystem was delaying initialization of other resources (USB subsystem) while it "waited" for the second monitor to come online. Maybe something in the order of resource allocation?

The notes I read about multiple-monitor Windows video issues mostly talked about how Windows behaved badly when one monitor was disconnected/powered-down, and many mentioned needing to take semi-extreme measures to get their second monitor back up after re-connecting/powering-up.

They looked resource-allocation/timing related.

I thought, "What if the system is trying to load the second monitor, and isn't able to finish the boot sequence until it gets a successful response from a video card probe? What if it just waits forever?"

There should be a quick rejection of the two-monitor setup when one isn't installed, and roll-over to the single-monitor configuration, but many threads mentioned that this "intelligent" behavior was failing ... so maybe it was failing in my user's situation, too?

I'm guessing the resources for the USB subsystem weren't released because the video subsystem (higher priority) was behaving badly ... un-intelligently.

Once the second monitor was hooked up, the boot process was able to finish normally, and resources for the USB subsystem were released on schedule.

I don't think it is equipment-specific ... it didn't matter whether we used my monitor plus one of his, or both of his ... I think it's just that enough gear was connected so that the probe succeeded within the parameters of the OS's priority structure, releasing resources for the rest of the boot.

That's what I'm going with, so I can get some sleep. 

If anyone has additional thoughts ... wacky though they may be ... why not add them to this thread so we will all eventually have some sort of "real" answer? It's an unusual situation, but it will probably come up again, some time.


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

Odd. Unless the monitor (or more specifically video card output) not connected was the "primary" display. Windows can't always recover properly if the primary display is lost.


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## rickp74 (Nov 9, 2012)

Hi Folks!
I realize that this thread is over a year old but I thought that I would post anyway.
I have the exact same problem as the OP. I have a 7 year old Toshiba Satellite A105 with Windows XP Media Center 2005 and all applicable SP updates.

I started my computer up after it was off (ie "Shutdown") for an entire weekend. I normally keep it in standby mode. When it started up, I had absolutely no way to input into the computer. No mouse, touch pad or keyboard commands would work. No other peripherals subsequently plugged in would work either with the exception of the next sentence. I've even tried booting up with an external monitor plugged in after reading this thread!  For the record, both monitors worked perfectly fine simultaneously.

I did some research on my wife's computer and ended up installing Ubuntu 12.10 from a LiveUSB. Everything works perfectly fine when running Ubuntu. Mouse, keyboard and touchpad work perfectly. The keyboard also inputs correctly any time before Windows starts loading just as it did for the OP. So I can access and change values in Setup when the computer first starts up. This allowed me to change my boot sequence so that I could install Ubuntu from USB.

The only other oddity that I can recall from right before the weekend is that my antivirus program, Kaspersky, found suspicious activity in the form of a keylogger but it didn't offer a solution or action item. The name of the file was kbdcap.sys and it was in my Windows/System32 folder. I received the warning from Kaspersky twice over the course of a couple of days. After the second warning, I moved the file from my system32 folder and put it on my desktop. I also renamed it "kdpcapandtrade.sys" in an attempt to make sure that it couldn't function. My computer worked perfectly fine for the next day or so after I moved/renamed that file but I had only been going to standby mode, not shutting down. Maybe the change took effect after that restart and is now causing havoc in my system?

After getting back online with Ubuntu and after much searching on the web about that file, it seems that it is related to the operation of the keyboard and that it does exhibit behavior similar to that of a keylogger but it has also been claimed to be "clean". I'm skeptical, of course. I ended up renaming it back to the original file name and putting it back into the system32 folder from Ubuntu. After a few restarts, nothing has changed. The first time I restarted after putting the file back, Windows started a dskchk and it found approximately 15 items to fix and move around and restore or some such. I don't know if that's relevant. It might be. Two other similar dskchk were automatically performed after other changes I made (partition moves) prior to this dskchk and nothing was found either time.

I'm not expecting a solution. I would be surprised if anybody even read this post. I just wanted to give what information I had available just to get it out there and see what happens.

I don't have recovery discs, I can't afford to purchase a new Windows OS and I don't feel comfortable downloading a pirated version even though I have a valid Activation Code. Toshiba doesn't support computers prior to 2006 and I can't access the supposedly hidden recovery software on this computer. I am apparently going to be using Ubuntu on this computer until I can afford a new machine in the future. I will be happy with this solution once I figure out how to run my favorite games and I'm optimistic with this course of action.

Of course, it would be really interesting if a solution were found... 

Thanks for your time and have fun!
-Rick P.


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