There are 4 USB ports. From the convenience I will call them A, B, C, and D, starting from top left one. A was mouse, B was keyboard and D was a USB hub. I tried flipping A and B and keyboard worked upon startup (from complete power down) but the mouse didn't. I moved the mouse to C and still the same situation, keyboard worked but mouse didn't unless I unplug and plug back in.
I moved the mouse back to port A and unplugged the USB hub from D port. I powered down once again, and did a started up the computer. This time both the mouse and the keyboard worked. For the last time I flipped the mouse from A to B and the keyboard from B to A, shut down, started up, and everything worked.
Then I plugged in the USB hub to D once again, shut down, started up again, and both the mouse and keyboard worked this time. I repeated this three times, with complete shutdown and startup. It worked every time. So I assume it will work now, at least for a while. It might be just enough to give me time to prepare for a complete reinstall of Windows. But for the time being it seems to work now.
It's a weird problem though... I have never had this issue with Vista before, and not with XP either. This computer however came with OEM Windows Vista Home Basic from the manufacturer. But I prefer retail versions of Windows on all my computers. This one also came with the regular non-custom version of Windows Vista media and I will try to install that one next time I do the reinstall process.
Short version for future visitors:
Try the following...
- Unplug all the USB devices.
- Plug in the devices one by one, starting with the keyboard.
- Wait for Windows to configure the device, and now plug in the mouse.
- Now shut down the computer, and start it up again.
- If both mouse and keyboard work now, then plug in the remaining USB
devices one by one.
- Now shut down the computer once more and start it up again and see
if everything works.
In general you have to experiment a little with different ports.
Best Answer
There seems to be issues with Windows 8.1 and ASUS motherboards. Links:
Help! After installing Windows 8.1, the SuperSpeed ports of my ASUS system don’t work….
Unable to use USB ports since upgrading to Windows 8.1 Preview
I had a similar problem as the OP and updating the BIOS solved it for me.