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macbook pro usb ports not working

This just started about a month ago. When it first occured, I could restart the laptop and the ports would work. Now, no luck. Mac OS X - 10.6.8

Posted on May 9, 2012 8:19 PM

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Posted on Feb 4, 2017 11:45 AM

Solution found!!


Had the same persisting problem on a Mac Pro 3.1, which literally happened all of a sudden after a clean OS X install,

Had two OS Xs on two separate drives, reinstalled one but problem persisted.


I had tried:


Resetting PRAM.

Reset SMC.

Shut down/unplug-plug everything/restart.

Reinstall OS.

Update drivers/OS.

Extension USB cord.

Plugging USB hub/power device to force more power from the USB.

Reading countless articles on the topic.


None of those worked. Unlucky me.


Finally read that as a last resort to try & remove the CMOS battery (the battery on the mobo) & either reinsert the same or a new one (CR2032).

Unlucky me, the battery clip broke off & that was the last straw lol ..so I thought... F-it, I'm just gonna power it on as it is & see what happens!


Voila!! USB function restored with no battery at all, and so far...it's working just the same with no abnormal reaction to the lack of battery.

Tbh...I rather get errors & load drivers if need be, than not have a keyboard/mouse and be unable to control the Mac at all.


Try removing the battery & reinserting it, or just removing it all together & hopefully that fixes it for you all, just be careful as the top clip can easily break, and the solution to fix that is soldering...which I rather not attempt if it can be avoided.


Good luck!!

46 replies

Sep 13, 2013 4:41 AM in response to Booze S

Since a couple of months ago I am experiencing a weird related problem with one of the usb ports of my MacBook Pro late 2011. When I restart the system in the normal automatic way, the port that is located closer to the screen stop working right after the loading of the drivers (I can monitor that it works by looking at the lights of an attached mouse). I can also confirm that the moment that it stops is right after loading the drivers, since the same happens while booting in the verbose mode.

Strangely enough, if I boot the machine through a false recovery mode, that is with cmd-R combination keys and then choosing the same usual drive to boot from, the port works normally.

Could someone give me a reasonable explanation and perhaps a cure to this behavior? Do the booting with cmd-R keys look for different drivers than the automatic one?

Any other suggestions (I have tryed everything recommended on hardware reset -smc, nvram, etc.-, so I am preety confident that it is a software problem but I would not like to go on reinstalling the full system to try)

By the way, I run OS X 10.7.5

Feb 11, 2014 1:56 PM in response to tjk

Hi,


I'm having the same problem. I did the PRAM & SMC Reset (bought my macbook pro late 2011) & none of the resets are working. Everything worked earlier today & now nothing is working. Any suggestions? It is showing up in my disk utility, but won't let me access anything. This is my back-up hard drive for my whole computer, so wiping it and trying again isn't really an option (as I've seen from other posts). Any help would be appreciated!


Thanks!

Mar 25, 2014 1:12 PM in response to tjk

I'm having the same problem. Firstly, last year one of my ports stopped working, it would simply not mount, didn't show up any usb drive. And secondly, today my other usb port is having the same problem, which is frustrating because I work a lot on my computer and on adobe softwares but I can't back up my stuff or transfer files through my usb drives or to my computer.

I wish I can solve this by simply downloading something or another suggestion without having to go to a computer store to try to fix it and pay a lot of money, or in another case, have to buy another mac pro. And I don't have money for that right now.


Can you please please tell me something that I can do??

Mar 26, 2014 8:15 AM in response to Booze S

I found that booting into recovery on startup solved the problem on my MBP late 2013 with Mavericks. NOTE: I did not actually run any of the recovery operations. I just initiated the process. See this link:


http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4718.


By the way, my problem was isolated to the USB port on the left. The one on the right next to the HDMI port was fine.

macbook pro usb ports not working

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