I'm having problems with my computer. I think it's the card reader, but could be the motheboard I guess. I ALWAYS use the card reader so i just need it fixed or replaced.

It was working fine until last week. Then I started getting unrecognized USB device messages popping up from the tool bar. I didn't know what was causing them until a couple days later when I went to put music on my MicroSD card. I noticed the lights on the card reader were both on before I even put it in(normally only red, but both the red and green were on.) So I plugged the card into it and nothing happened. So for couple days I figured the reader went out. Then I decided to plug the card reader into another port on the motherboard. It worked perfectly for like 3 days. Then yesterday it just stopped. No light or anything. I was wondering if it was the card reader dying. OR can certain ports(not sure what they're called) on the motherboard be giving out ?

Hopefully it's the card reader, because I don't want the motherboard to fail on me soon. But i'de appreciate some help if that's possible. Any ideas what the real problem is. If you need more info about anything i'll try and help out. Thanks in advance!

do u have a way to test the reader on another system?
is the driver for the reader corrupt?
have you update the motherboard bios to the latest? have you recently updated and received this problem?


my recommendation would be to uninstall the card reader and buy an elcheapo usb reader for like 10 bucks from Wal-mart.

If I understand this, you have a desktop and a PCI (probably) x-in-1 card reader. It has been in one PCI slot for a while working, then all of the sudden it stopped. You changed PCI slots it worked for a few days then stopped again.

If this is the case, its almost definitely the card reader. If you have something else PCI (sound card, usb expansion, etc) you can test the PCI slots that, when the card reader is plugged into it, the card reader doesn't work -- buttt I think its safe to say the card reader is gone.

You could also test the card reader on another comp, but if it takes a few days to stop working, then that could be annoying.

So yeah, Clorox probably gave you the best suggestion w. a USB card reader replacement.

Ya, you understood it correctly. Didn't know what the slots were called :/ But I was thinking it was the reader. Just didn't want to spend $10-$20 on a new one when it wasn't fucked up. But it's good to know the motherboard isn't slowly failing on me. Thanks guys. Much appreciated.

Power supply

Thanks Tazz, that was my third guess....