Verify Failing USB Ports

[EchoLynx]

I have a HP laptop and (used) to have a Micro Innovations USB mouse. The way that the laptop is set up, the USB port is on the right side of the keyboard and sticks out into what I call my mouse field. Over the years I have bumped that thing numerous times. The mouse would sometimes work if the wire was positioned so or you jiggled it in the USB port (sometimes not) until it finally just quit.

When the mouse's reliability began to deteriorate, the PC suddenly started crashing unexpectedly. This was not a BSOD- just a seemingly random powerdown. (Monitor, HDD, fans, everything turned off without warning.) This would occur sometimes when running updates, sometimes just when surfing the web. Finally it got to the point where neither the mouse would work nor would the computer pass it's own POST. It would just start, begin to POST, and die. The mouse was still plugged in, so I suspected that it was bad and tried it on another laptop. Sure 'nuff, the mouse was the culprit. But I am still concerned about the USB ports. I want to make sure that it wasn't the USB port(s) failing, so I am looking for any software that has the capability to verify the health of one's USB ports.

Does anybody have any suggestions? I need to test this before I try and run a backup as I currently backup using System Rescue CD and Part Image with a external USB HDD, and I don't want to risk corrupting both my backup and my original at the same time because of a hardware failure.

Thanks,
Ian

[lakehousetech]

In most cases a USB port will either work, or it will not. Test out another peripheral on it for an extended amount of time and see what happens. Sometimes the solder joints of the port will get lose or break which will cause an intermittent connection, but I've never seen one short circuit before (which might cause the computer to power down as you stated in your post). You can check it while the power is off by putting a male plug in and to see if it will move around at all.