Question : Problem: Power Surge on Hub Port - Started with a USB Speaker, and ended with no USB at all.

Hello, I am running Windows XP on a Dell Latitude D800 which is out of warranty. When I plugged in my speakers awhile back, I needed to plug in a usb part in order for it to be powered. I left it in for about 20 minutes, and when I came back, the message "Power Surge on Hub" was on the screen, and none of the usb ports would work. After buying a pci card which had two usb ports, I thought it would be okay. The card doesn't work anymore.

I have been researching this problem for two weeks; I have read that taking out the battery for a half-hour would fix it, that manually going in and fixing the usb port would fix it, and that it is just irreversible, permanent damage. Any help would be very appreciated, thank you.

Answer : Problem: Power Surge on Hub Port - Started with a USB Speaker, and ended with no USB at all.

>>   Power Surge on Hub  <<  usually just means what it says: you usb hub suffered a power surge( which is easily done, since it supports max 5 V at 0.5 A)
several options :
the usb port(s) are burned --> installing a new card fixes it in most cases
the hub is burned : depending on how bas the burn is, it can be fixed by a pci to usb card or not, difficult to tell
you can test your usb system (and maybe the card too) by :
installing an OS on a separate partition or disk and test the usb, or run from a live cd like knoppix :
ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V5.1.0CD-2006-12-30-EN.iso