I've just been through all this as my computer suddenly decided to stop recognizing all the USB devices. Have done all the things above including twice deleting all references to USB hardware in system manager and the registry and rebooting whereupon Windows then reinstalled all the USB hardware. It still wouldn't work.

Not to be a smartass, but you didn't ask a question so what's the purpose of the OP?

What's the purpose of referring to the only post as "OP?"

USB suddenly took on dump on my pops' computer as well. He just tossed in a PCI USB card, seems like something went wrong on the motherboard and he never figured out what the cause was. So if worse comes to worse toss in a USB card. Most of them even have a place where you can hook up the jumper for the case USB ports.

hey guys look its another spammer!

/me spams mb's FACE.

Screwing with the registry unless you know exactly what you're doing is not a good idea, if you're not careful you can break Windows (I managed to totally break networking trying to remove an empty network bridge, had to reinstall Windows).

My USB can be a little quirky, whereas it will only recognize devices in certain ports. Usual culprit is my mouse, won't work after I move my PC until I move it to another port.

try resetting CMOS?

http://forums.techguy.org/5109368-post5.html