Problems with sound and USB ports

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Recently, two USB ports of a family laptop stopped functioning and the third one behaves erratically. At the same time, input and output sound devices stopped working completely. The message in sound settings says there are no devices.

Could these problems be due to some windows update?

If you need additional information, please let me know.

Thanks a lot

 

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My first thought is that you’re missing several Microsoft OS patches and/or some driver updates. That is a common reason for sound issues and not a rare issue for USB ports.

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StavRoss wrote:

Recently, two USB ports of a family laptop stopped functioning and the third one behaves erratically. At the same time, input and output sound devices stopped working completely. The message in sound settings says there are no devices. Could these problems be due to some windows update?

Possibly…

I suggest you first look at Device Manager to see if there are any issues showing.

Ultimately, it’s all down to the hardware path how devices end up connecting to the CPU… then, layered on top, how Windows’ device drivers interpret that connectivity.

With a hardware issue like this, the first thing I do is use a bootable USB stick to run a live version of Linux (I use Linux Mint Cinnamon) to see whether the hardware issue presents using an entirely different OS.

Hope this helps…

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(These days USB host controller > PCIe > PCI > CPU is common, particularly for laptops where the mainboard is often smaller than desktop equivalents.

To save money [mere cents], many laptop manufacturers prefer using relatively cheaper USB components rather than the slightly more expensive PCIe/PCI components to connect hardware via their respective buses.

This is the reason you often see devices like webcams and sound devices showing in the ‘Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media’ menu against the USB icon in Windows’ lower-right Notification Area.

So, even though USB ports and sound devices may at first seem unrelated… there IS often a common hardware path, especially with laptops, based on their bus interconnections to ultimately connect to the CPU.)

 

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Thank you very much for the prompt reply.

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