How To Fix A Broken Optical Port

The Universal Series Double-decker (USB) is ubiquitous today, and as the name suggests, it can exist used to connect a wide variety of devices and peripherals. As such, a USB port is used much more frequently than any other connector or interface.

After a long and sustained use, this can invite problems to your USB port due to wearable and tear. Sometimes, your USB port itself might be cleaved. Losing the use of even a single USB port tin can be problematic, especially considering that many modern thin and light laptops come with very few USB ports.

If you are in a similar situation, so we hope to help yous with this guide on how to fix your dead or broken USB port.

The Causes for Your Dead or Broken USB Port

Permit us consider the reasons why a USB port might finish working, so that we have an idea on how to continue with the diagnosis, identify the reason, so use the corresponding fix.

Your USB port could have stopped working for whatever of the following reasons:

Disabled device
Outdated, corrupt, or incompatible driver
The USB Selective Suspend characteristic is enabled.
Faulty USB peripheral
Dirt and dust in the USB port.
The USB port is damaged.

USB Port Not Working Due to Commuter, Windows or Power Management Problems

The reason why your USB port is not working might be traced back to driver bug, Windows needing update, or power management bug. These diagnoses are unproblematic, and fixes are like shooting fish in a barrel.

Unless you know for certain that the USB port is damaged physically, you should effort the fixes in this commodity we have on USB ports not working before proceeding further.

USB Port is Damaged Physically

Showtime of all, inspect your USB port from the exterior. Are the pins showing signs of wear and tear or they wiggle? If there is physical damage to the USB port, the 2 possibilities are that either the USB connector itself is damaged, or the soldering has come up loose.

In either case, you volition need to open up your computer and expose the motherboard to appraise the state of affairs and fix it.

You will need to have some experience with disassembling and assembling the components in your PC or laptop. If not, nosotros strongly recommend that you lot get professional assistance instead.

We take presented a general outline on how to remove the motherboard from your PC or laptop below. Nonetheless, depending upon your organisation, some steps might vary. Thus, refer to the manufacturer or the user transmission for a detailed overview on how to remove your motherboard.

Warning! Delight remember to always discharge static electricity and utilise an antistatic wristband while dealing with the internal components of a computer.

We recommend having a toolkit and a magnetic tray handy to facilitate screw removal. Fastening an incorrect screw while re-assembling your system could damage the screw slot. Therefore, please keep rail of screws and where they go. This is specially of import if there are screws of different lengths.

Remove the Motherboard

USB ports are soldered onto the motherboard. Thus, you will demand to remove the motherboard from your PC or laptop to proceeds access before you can proceed with identifying the problem and fixing it.

PC Users:

Shut down your figurer and disconnect the power cables from the wall socket.
Press and hold the ability button for 10-20 seconds to discharge the circuitry.
Lay your PC casing apartment on the side and open the back panel.
Disconnect the power connector and other cables from the motherboard.
Remove fastened hardware such as video carte, heatsink, CPU, network carte du jour, etc.
Disconnect attached hard drives and optical drives, if whatever.
Unfasten the screws connecting the motherboard to the CPU casing.
Carefully remove the motherboard from the casing.

Laptop Users:

Close down the laptop and disconnect the charger from the wall socket.
If your laptop has an external battery, remove it.
Press and concur the power button for 10-twenty seconds to discharge the circuitry.
Flip the laptop and unfasten the screws on the dorsum panel. Preferably use a magnetic tray to retain the screws.
Gently pry open up the dorsum panel autonomously from the laptop torso using a flat-head screwdriver or guitar picks.
Remove the difficult drives, SSDs, memory and WiFi carte. Accept a picture, if you must, for future reference.
Remove the heatsink.
Flip the laptop the right fashion upwards.
Remove the swivel cover and the keyboard.
Elevator the plastic tab underneath the keyboard and disconnect the keyboard ribbon cable. There might be other ribbon cables, disconnect them all. Once again, it might be a good idea to accept a pic before proceeding with removal of cables.
Unfasten the screws on the shield underneath the keyboard and remove it carefully.
Disconnect the antenna, display, and webcam cables, keeping track of their attachment points for time to come reference.
Identify the screws you demand to unfasten to remove the motherboard assembly. Some motherboards have them marked, otherwise refer to the usual manual or online documentation to identify those screws.
Carefully lift the motherboard from its installed identify. It should come up out without much resistance.

Once you've exposed the motherboard, place the USB ports and inspect it visually.

Has the soldering come loose?
Are the pins bent?

If there is physical damage with the USB port itself (such equally excessive article of clothing and tear, or bent and broken pins), you lot will need to obtain a replacement port. Procure a uniform USB connector port from your local or online store.

Fixing the Damaged USB Port

At present that yous take removed the motherboard and exposed the damaged USB port, nosotros can go alee with the prepare. Nevertheless, you will need the following tools:

Soldering iron kit.
90% or stronger isopropyl alcohol.
Clean toothbrush.
Make clean microfiber cloth.

Brand sure that these items are ready. Option the appropriate soldering atomic number 26 tip,and use safety precautions. Wear rubber goggles and have an frazzle fan running. Then, proceed with the fix below.

Use the soldering atomic number 26 and solder wick to melt away the existing solder on the USB port and detach information technology.
Melt away any existing solder from the USB pivot attachment points as well.
Make clean the board using isopropyl alcohol, brush and microfiber textile. If there are hard to reach places, you may likewise utilise a cotton wool swab.
Take hold of the replacement USB port and align it, then seat it into the motherboard. If your former USB port was not working only because of a break in solder, yous can just use that.
Carefully solder the USB port and USB pin connection points
Snip any excess atomic number 82

In one case you've fixed the damaged USB port, you can reverse the disassembly process to re-gather your PC or laptop.