Getting USB Code 43 and 31 errors. Help please.

I am posting a question for my friend and wanted to know if you folks could help me out. He has a HP Pavilion DV9000 17" laptop. It recently fell off his bed and hit the ground. This caused the LCD to crack. Luckly he had a warranty at Best Buy and brought it in to get it fixed. They fixed his LCD fine but now(after some time after the repair) he is getting these wierd code 43 and code 31 errors with an error message of "unknown device". I tried helping him with this but am not sure what is going on.

He is running Vista x64 Premium and I made sure he had all the latest service packs, which he has now. I had him check for updated USB drivers and they are the most up to date already. I googled for a while and found many people getting this error but there were no reliable fixes for it.

He is thinking that after the laptop fell something might have been distrupted inside that the tech did not look at.

Does this sound like a hardware issue? All his USB ports don't work. For a short time they worked(after I did updates and a bunch of other stuff) but they don't work again.

Any help would be great. Thanks.

 

Did you try reinstalling the OS? That, at least, would rule out software issues. But it does sound like the hardware is borked.

 

Thanks for the reply Greg. No, I didn't try that as I didn't want it to be that invasive, but maybe thats all thats left to do? Not even sure he has the original discs. I will suggest this to him and see if I can help him with that.

Any other software based resolutions that I can try?

Also lets' say that there is an issue with the hardware, can I bypass this by getting an express card that has a couple of USB ports? Just another idea I was thinking of. Thanks.

 

Are you using the USB ports built-in to the laptop? You may want to try using a powered USB hub as most laptop USB ports tend to be unpowered.

 

Yes, we are trying to use the USB built into the laptop itself. I don't think the problem here is the issue of power supply. All the USB ports don't work, not that they cannot supply enough power. The only things he hooks up the the laptop is his ipod, flash drive, or camera. Nothing crazy.

Also the USB hub would itself need to hook up to the laptop using a USB interface, which can't be done, since none of the USB ports work.

UHG......

 

Well here is an update. For now his laptop is working and I have advised him to reformat it if he experiences the same problems again, to rule out software issues. He will probably end of buying a new one in 1 or 2 years. Thanks for your help.