No keyboard or mouse......

[Dad]

Gentlemen (and TG),

Over the last few weeks I've repaired and given away all the old computers I've had laying about, save one. I have an old Compaq Persario, Celeron running XP SP3 that I just can't fix. It boots perfectly, but I have no input. Neither mouse nor keyboard work. I bought new USB mouse and keyboard, nada. It had been working with the older inputs, the green and purple plugs, so I tried an old wireless adapter, no joy. I also tried a straight USB to purple adapter without success.

What to do? Friends tell me, "Open in safe mode....." Can't without a keyboard. "Click on Start....." Can't without a mouse. If it has to go in the trash, no big deal but I'd like to fix it and give it away. Thanks! ~D

[Animegears]

Well...does the keyboard respond in the BIOS? If not then the PS/2 ports or their controller is likely fried. In that case you can either toss it or plug in a USB hub that runs from a PCI card and then use that as the main point for your keyboard and mouse.

[Dad]

It's not so old that it didn't come with USB. I did just give one away that I had added USB to it, though. I tried a new USB mouse and keyboard without success.

This particular machine had been totally toasted with viruses and malware and it took me days to clean it out. All these machines were preloaded with XP and none came with an OS or a system disc or I would have reformated and reloaded.

I ran everything I could find through it, including registry cleaners. Some how, I lost "my computer" on it but it was working well when I last turned it off.

How do I get into BIOS if the keyboard doesn't work?

[Animegears]

Simple answer...You don't. The OS drivers have nothign to do with the BIOS and if you can't get into there then it sounds like the ports are bad. The BIOS also may not be compliant with USB inputs if it is really old.

[aclays]

It's possible that the adapter isn't working, but that's not so likely. If a keyboard that is native to the green / purple slots don't work, then the motherboard is definitely toast.

[Animegears]

Do any other USB things work if you plug them in once in the OS? If not USB slots work and the PS/2 ports are non functioning then the only options are a PCI USB hub or dump the mobo and save the HDD.

[Dad]

Well, this is interesting. I restarted the machine using the USP KB and rodent and started hitting F8. It came up in the screen to select opening OS! The up/down buttons worked and I could choose Regular start up, Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, or last working setup. Unfortunately, once it opened, the keyboard was dead again. The USB mouse never worked, period.

I'm certain this indicates something, this vs that, but I don't know what!

I wonder if I might have cleaned some of my drivers out with the deep purges I was doing to clean all the boogers out?

[aclays]

I've had an issue on my computers before where the usb doesn't work once I get out of setup, not in windows, windows setup, nada.

I found the solution to be enabling usb somehow within the bios

[Animegears]

If you are able to get through the menus prior to launching windows then it is a driver issue in Windows. The BIOS drivers support it up to that point. You might try launching the recovery console and manually installing some drivers through that.

Get the drivers from an XP disc or from the manufacturers website. Put them on either another CD or a USB key. Then put in an XP install disc (any will do if you have one you don't need a key) and fire it up like you were going to run setup. Instead of installing hit r to enter recovery console.

Once there, you should be greeted with
c:\WINDOWS>
you can type (as long as you now have the CD/flash drive with the drivers in)

copy_d:\nameofdriver.inf_c:\windows\system32\drivers\nameofdriver.inf

where d is the name of your removable media driver, "Nameofdriver" is exactly that and the ".inf" is the extension on the end of the driver(usually inf). Make sure it isn't an exe, msi, com, zip, 7z, rar or other file extensions that require more than just copy-paste. And the "_" equals a space just for clarification.


If you don't have an install disc you can always download the iso for the RC from Microsoft.com.

[Sk33ps]

You could try a live Linux CD as well to see if it's an issue with the Windows drivers. I recommend DamnSmallLinux.org as it's old PC friendly just make sure the PC can boot to a CD.

[Animegears]

That or knoppix.