usb problem

[Ironside]

i gave my dad an old pc a couple of years back which has worked fine till this year when he got 2 new usb devices for christmas
1 a flash drive the other a scanner, all his other usb devices work ok on his machine and the 2 new devices work ok on my laptop and desktop
yet on my dads machine everytime its plugged in it reboots the machine, if plugged in before the machine is turned on it restarts the pc

does anyone know what could be causing this and if there is a way to upgrade the pc without buying a new one

he only uses the pc for emails and getting photos for family so dont want to spend much to sort this out

[booder]

FK MY LIFE...............i can understand an Ironstein post


off for a lie down.

[gatso]

FK MY LIFE...............i can understand an Ironstein post


off for a lie down.

lol. there's no way he wrote that

my old lappy had 4 usb ports, I could use my memory stick in 3 of them but if I put it in the other one the machine switched off immediately. never found out why though 'cos I could just use one of the others

[seven2unsuited]

similar thing happened to my comp years ago, My power supply could handle the additonal devices, i replaced that and it worked, dunno if that is what up with yours tho. how long ago was the pc built?

[lazaroonie]

what version of windows ?

if it is XP, it is vital that he installs service pack 2 since that has a lot of important updates for USB drivers.

If it is windows 2000 then forget it, it is unlikely to work.

[Ironside]

its xp and should have sp2 installed i will check that out though