I had to repair the Windows XP installation on my ASUS A7V333 based PC after something got corrupted somewhere. The repair which I did with a Windows XP SP2 disk that I had created using the slip streaming feature ran without any problems except that after the repair the USB 1.1 ports on my PC wouldn't recognise any devices when they were plugged in. The USB 2.0 ports worked without any problems. From the searches that I did, USB problems seem to be pretty common with this motherboard. Eventually, I had to repair the Windows XP installation a second time to get everything working properly, but here is what I think you need to do to get the USB working properly if you need to repair your installation.
I've included some links to files on the ASUS web site. If you want to see all the files that are available there you need to go to the ASUS Download area and navigate to the A7V333 section. The A7V333 is a SocketA (Socket462) series motherboard.
1.Unplug all the USB devices from the
PC's USB ports and uninstall all the programmes and drivers for the USB devices
(printers, web cams etc.) you use on your PC.
2.Get into the BIOS (hold down the
delete key when starting the PC) and set the USB Legacy Support to Enabled. This is within the Advanced area of the BIOS settings. There are more
details in the A7V333
Manual (PDF).
I don't know whether this is absolutely necessary, but it's something that I did in all the things that I tried while trying to get my PC working again and I haven't changed it back.
Note that I was already running the latest stable version of the BIOS, but this is something that you might also need to update. See the ASUS Download area.
3.Run the ASUS Microsoft KB817900 USB fail to enter S3 patch file for Windows XP (ZIP archive). This is discussed in the Utilities part of the Download area. This adds 2 entries to the Windows Registry that survive the repair process. Note that these entries are different to the Registry entry discussed in the Microsoft KB817900 article, but I added that at some stage and then found that it was removed during the second repair, and so it doesn't seem to be necessary.
4.Repair the Windows XP installation
using the Windows XP SP2 disk that either came with your PC or that you've created
using the slip streaming
feature. Microsoft provide this guide. On my PC, this took about 45
minutes.
Note that you need to keep an eye on what is going on as the installer may need some files and you may need to provide some information from time to time. Also, if you do the repair by booting from the CD then the repair goes through two stages with a reboot in between. Don't type anything after the system reboots. After the reboot the PC starts up using the files that it has copied to the hard drive in the first stage, not from the CD.
5.Click on Start - Run, type
devmgmt.msc and then press the OK button to start the Device Manager.
Alternatively, start the Device Manager through the Control Panel.
Once the Device Manager has opened, scroll down to Universal Serial Bus controllers and click on the + to expand the section. You should see something like
Right click on USB2.0 Root Hub and select Properties. Click on the Driver tab and the Driver Provider should be Microsoft. Click on Cancel to close the window.
Right click on VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller and select Properties. Click on the Driver tab and the Driver Provider should be Microsoft. Click on Cancel to close the window.
Close the Device Manager window.
6.Check that during the repair process
a C:\drivers directory, and especially a C:\drivers\usb20 directory has been created
and has files in it. You will need these later on.
7.Use Microsoft Update to bring your PC
up to date with all the updates that have been released since SP2 came out. This
may take a while and you may have to go through the process a number of times.
If Microsoft Update won't install the Microsoft Windows Installer 3.1 (this was the first update that it wanted to make to my PC) then following the steps in this guide solved the problem for me.
8.Download the VIA USB 2 drivers (ZIP archive) from the ASUS web site and unzip it to a folder where you'll be able to find it. This download is discussed (briefly) in the "In A7V333, why does the support CD USB2.0 driver cannot be used?" FAQ dated 6 August 2002. This is one of the first FAQs for the A7V333, so if you want to search for it independently you should be able to jump to the last page in the FAQ listing and find it there.
9.Find the Setup.exe file from the driver archive and double click it
to run it. This will run the driver installer. Click on Continue Anyway when the message saying that the drivers
are unsigned appears.
The set up programme installs some older, unsigned USB drivers (that we don't want, and which we will remove in the next step) and also makes some changes to the Windows Registry which we do want.
10.Click on Start - Run, type
devmgmt.msc and then press the OK button to start the Device Manager.
Alternatively, start the Device Manager through the Control Panel.
Scroll down to Universal Serial Bus controllers and click on the + to expand the section.
Right click on VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller and select Update driver ... A window will appear asking whether to Windows should search your PC for the drivers or whether you want to install from a specific location.
Chose to install from a specific location and then select the C:\drivers\usb20 directory discussed in Step 6. Click OK and the drivers installed by the repair process will be reinstalled for both the VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller and the USB2.0 Root Hub. You can check this using the process set out in Step 5.
11.Once the Microsoft drivers have been reinstalled your PC should be okay. Check this by plugging a simple USB device like a hub or a memory stick into a USB 1.1 port. Assuming that this works, you can then reinstall the programmes and drivers for your USB devices.
In this case, I would try the following steps. I won't guarantee that it will work, but it might save you having to repair Windows again.
Note that if you've already installed the VIA USB 2 drivers then I think that you will probably have to repair Windows again following the procedure set out above. Installing the VIA drivers was the first thing that I did and I didn't seem to be able to recover from it, though it is possible that that was due to all the errors that it caused corrupting some part of my system. Therefore, if you haven't had any BSOD errors yet, it might be worth trying the steps below, especially if you can get the Microsoft drivers to reinstall by following Step 10 above first, but I give even less guarantees than I do above.
A1.Check that during the repair process
a C:\drivers directory, and especially a C:\drivers\usb20 directory has been created
and has files in it. You will need these later on.
A2.Unplug all the USB devices from the
PC's USB ports and uninstall all the programmes and drivers for the USB devices
(printers, web cams etc.) you use on your PC.
A3.Run the ASUS Microsoft KB817900 USB fail to enter S3 patch file for Windows XP (ZIP archive). This is discussed in the Utilities part of the Download area. This adds 2 entries to the Windows Registry that survive the repair process. Note that these entries are different to the Registry entry discussed in the Microsoft KB817900 article, but I added that at some stage and then found that it was removed during the second repair, and so it doesn't seem to be necessary.
A4.Get into the BIOS (hold down the
delete key when starting the PC) and set the USB Legacy Support to Enabled. This is within the Advanced area of the
BIOS settings. There are more details in the A7V333
Manual (PDF).
I don't know whether this is absolutely necessary, but it's something that I did in all the things that I tried while trying to get my PC working again and I haven't changed it back.
Note that I was already running the latest stable version of the BIOS, but this is something that you might also need to update. See the ASUS Download area.
A5.Start your PC in Safe Mode by
holding down the <F8> key when starting it and then choosing Safe Mode from the options on the screen.
Once the PC has started in Safe Mode, click on Start - Run, type devmgmt.msc and then press the OK button to start the Device Manager. Alternatively, start the Device Manager through the Control Panel.
Once the Device Manager has opened, click on View and make sure that Show hidden devices is checked.
Next, uninstall all USB devices in the following order. You can uninstall a device by right clicking it and selecting Uninstall. You should search through all the sections shown in the Device Manager window.
1. USB peripheral devices (printers, web cams etc.)
2. HID and/or Composite USB (Human Interface Devices). I think that these only appear if you use a USB mouse or keyboard.
3. USB Root Hub(s)
4. USB Host Controllers. These will have names like "Universal Host Controller" or "Enhanced Host Controller".
My thanks to the people who posted these messages for this information.
A6.Close Device Manager and restart
your PC normally. This will reinstall all the USB controllers, and hopefully will
take into account the update to the Windows Registry that you made in StepA3.
A7.Once the PC has started, click on Start - Run, type devmgmt.msc and then press the OKbutton to start the Device Manager. Alternatively, start the Device Manager through the Control Panel. Check that the USB devices now have Microsoft drivers as set out in Step 5 above.
A8.Finally, follow Steps 8 - 11 above
to make sure that the Windows Registry includes the registry entries that are included
in the VIA drivers installer and then that the USB drivers are changed back to the
Microsoft drivers.
Hopefully your PC is now back in working order. If this second
procedure has worked, could you please let me, Paul, know so that I can update this
page. My email address is 