My Lenovo Legion 5 Pro with a Ryzen 7 5800H, 16GB of RAM, and an RTX 3070 suddenly stopped recognizing devices through all three rear USB ports. The USB port on the side still works. I've installed the latest Windows updates and removed the USB drivers through Device Manager so Windows could reinstall them, but that didn't help.
The rear ports still provide power—for example, an external hard drive's activity light turns on—but Windows doesn't detect the drive and doesn't play the usual connection sound. I found reports suggesting the rear USB-A ports use an integrated hub and resettable over-current protection that might need time to recover. However, I've already left the laptop powered off for more than 10 hours without any change.
Is there a way to manually reset the USB protection or otherwise determine whether this is a hardware problem without reinstalling Windows?
2 Answers
The quickest way to separate a Windows problem from a hardware problem is to boot a live operating system from a USB drive, such as Ubuntu’s “Try” mode or a Windows-based recovery environment. If the rear ports work there, Windows or its configuration is probably at fault. If they behave exactly the same way, the USB hub, protection circuit, or motherboard likely needs hardware diagnosis.
Since the ports provide power but don’t enumerate devices, that suggests the power side is alive while the data connection or integrated USB hub may be malfunctioning. A live-OS test is still the best non-destructive check. You can also perform a complete power reset first: shut the laptop down, disconnect the charger and all peripherals, then hold the power button for about 30–60 seconds before starting it again. If your model has an emergency-reset pinhole, use the procedure in Lenovo’s hardware manual. There usually isn’t a user-accessible way to manually reset an internal USB fuse; if the ports fail in another operating system too, repair or board-level service is the likely next step.
The ports do power an external drive—the drive’s light comes on—but Windows doesn’t detect it and there’s no connection sound. I’d prefer to avoid a clean Windows installation if there’s another way to narrow this down.