[SOLVED] USB port only works at an angle?

[brc61]

The USB ports on my laptop have been acting weird the past few months - they only connect when I tilt the USB cord horizontally away from me. Same issue with both ports. I thoroughly cleaned the ports and also used a needle to painstakingly lift each pin into the optimal position... no change. And I know it's the laptop because the issue occurs with every device I plug in.

My solution right now is a little silly but it works, i just loop a rubberband around the USB cable and the power cable, and it creates the tension needed to pull the USB cable into the tilted position.

Would hate to dish out money for this but idk what else to do at this point other than take it into a shop. Any advice is appreciated! Thank you!

 

[CountMike]

The USB ports on my laptop have been acting weird the past few months - they only connect when I tilt the USB cord horizontally away from me. Same issue with both ports. I thoroughly cleaned the ports and also used a needle to painstakingly lift each pin into the optimal position... no change. And I know it's the laptop because the issue occurs with every device I plug in.

My solution right now is a little silly but it works, i just loop a rubberband around the USB cable and the power cable, and it creates the tension needed to pull the USB cable into the tilted position.

Would hate to dish out money for this but idk what else to do at this point other than take it into a shop. Any advice is appreciated! Thank you!

Worn out, if ports have metal shielding you may try to squeeze top and bottom a bit. Otherwise it's off to a shop to replace them.

 

[Grobe]

Alternative to "worn out" is that the usb ports probably have a bad soldering spot to the main board.

This is probably fixable by taking out motherboard and re-solder the pins of the usb ports (two adjacent usb ports probably share the same metal housing - invisible until opening the laptop).
This is normally not something you do yourself, but make a repair shop have a look and fix it if possible.