[SOLVED] I think my MB's USB outputs are busted. Won't charge cell phone anymore. HELP!

[hidekelip]

Hello, all. Sorry for the long post. TL;DR below.

I have an old rig I built myself about 9 years or so ago (it's old, but it has served me well), with a couple upgrades I've done since the initial build (specs below).

I've always plugged my cell phone's USB charging cable to my PCs instead of a wall charger. Never had any issues. I also started using a wireless charging pad over a year ago when I got an iphone 8 plus, which also never game me any issues.

I use rechargeable batteries for my xbox one, and the charging block that holds two batteries at a time can be plugged into USB. I usually plug it into the xbox's front USB slot, but I have a third external HDD currently that I've been using to transfer content off the console's internal drive. Because of this, I have twice plugged this battery charging block into my PC's front USB slot. Nothing bad happened the first time, which was about two weeks ago. Things were working normally, phone and wireless pads were working fine. However, the last time was only a couple days ago. I unplugged the charger soon after the batteries charged up, meaning I didn't leave it plugged in for long after reaching full charge, just as a general precaution.

But, yesterday I noticed the wireless charging pad didn't do anything when I placed my phone down on it (I had it plugged into one of the two USB 3.0 ports on the front of the PC tower). I thought the wireless charging pad had busted. So I plugged my phone directly with the OEM Apple charging cable to a USB port on the back of the PC tower. It charged my phone fine to 100%. Later, I unplugged my phone and plugged my airpod charging case with the same cable, but nothing happened. Re-plugged several times, but nothing happened. So I plugged my phone back in to see if it was working the way it had worked just earlier, but the phone didn't receive any charge at all. Nothing detected by windows. So I unplugged and re-plugged. Restarted the PC. Unplugged the power from the tower and waited about a minute. Tried other USB (3.0 and 2.0) ports on the back. None of this worked. I also did all of this with a second wireless charging pad (different brand/model), and also with the OEM Apple charging cable plugged directly into my phone. NONE of this worked. Plugging in the wireless pads, lights will light up momentarily, but placing the phone on them does not charge the phone at all. Nothing happens.

At first I thought it maybe the wireless charging pad went bad, but I did try two different ones. And the charging cable connected directly to the phone also didn't work, even though I did work one time before this.

So I found the OEM Apple wall adapter cube and plugged the OEM Apple cable to the phone and it worked. Phone receives charge, cable works, wall adapter works. I tried the two wireless pads on the same Apple wall adapter with two different micro USB cables and they did not work, however. (Perhaps they need a different wall adapter?)

So now I'm thinking that perhaps the USB plugs/outputs/interfaces (I'm a noob at this stuff, not sure what to call them) on the MB are not able to power devices anymore. Maybe charging those xbox controller batteries on that charging block messed up the power that USB connections give off on the MB? I don't know if I'm making any sense. My keyboard and mouse work fine, but I think something that requires more power won't work. When I plug in the first wireless charging pad, I get a message from windows saying that the USB device has malfunctioned and windows cannot detect it or something. I don't get this with the second wireless pad.

Do you think my MB is "fried", per se? I mean, not entirely, but the USBs don't seem to work like they used to. =\ My first thought was that I had to get a new PC case because the front USBs got damaged, but after trying other USB ports on the back, none of them worked to charge the phone or make the wireless pads work. And perhaps the USB ports damaged the pads after I tried them? So it isn't a problem with the case's USB ports, but rather the MB's USB ports?

Any advice is appreciated. I wasn't looking to change my MB or anything else at this time, but now I'm a bit nervous at the prospect that perhaps the MB will stop working at any moment.

Thank you.

-HP

TL;DR:
-Old rig I built years ago was working fine until yesterday when the front and rear USB ports no longer charge my phone or wireless pad I had connected to it.
-I recently plugged an xbox controller battery charging block to one of the front USB ports to charge two batteries.
-Perhaps the MB's USB are damaged because of this? Thoughts?

Thanks.

Specs:
Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge Quad-Core 3.4GHz
EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB FTW Gaming w/ACX 2.0
ASUS Sabertooth P67 (REV 3.0) LGA 1155
CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Rosewill Lightning-1000 1000W PSU

 

[Lutfij]

Quite possible that the motherboard's ports might be calling it quits. Might want to see if reinstalling your chipset drivers helps change the issue, as well as seeing if you have any BIOS updates pending for that motherboard. Also, this is about the right time for that platform to be calling it a day, literally due to regular wear and tear.

Make and model of the charging block for the Xbox controller?

 

[helpstar]

Should be broken USB ports, maybe get a PCIe USB controller card

 

[hidekelip]

Quite possible that the motherboard's ports might be calling it quits. Might want to see if reinstalling your chipset drivers helps change the issue, as well as seeing if you have any BIOS updates pending for that motherboard. Also, this is about the right time for that platform to be calling it a day, literally due to regular wear and tear.

Make and model of the charging block for the Xbox controller?

Thanks for the reply.

I hadn’t even thought of it as a software issue, only a hardware issue. I opened up device manager and saw that one of my serial bus controllers had a caution sign over the icon. Tried to do an automatic driver update, but came back saying it was already on the latest driver. I thought about uninstalling it and re-installing, but first I decided to see if there were any windows updates pending, as suggested by the device manager driver wizard. I checked and saw some pending updates. Clicked install updates; it asked to restart the system, so I did. Once booted in, tried the charging cable with my phone and it worked! Phone was charging again finally. However, tried the wireless pad but it wasn’t working on my phone. I then went and tried another phone I have at home on various wireless charging pads including mine, and it was working. That’s when I FINALLY realized I should restart my phone. Which I did. Turns out that’s all I had to do to get my phone working on the wireless pads again. It’s the first rule of IT troubleshooting, ain’t it, and I still failed hahaha.

So turns out it was a two part problem: the USB controller issue AND my phone needing to be restarted. I just thought it was JUST the USBs not working.

Thanks for the suggestions! Much appreciated.