I have an HP Media Center PC m7160n Windows XP SP3 1 GB Ram.

All of a sudden one day the computer began restarting itself whenever a USB cord was newly plugged into any USB port on the front or back of the PC. (The printer works fine.)

This happens when any type of device is plugged into a USB port whether it's a charging device (ie iPod) or a non-charging device (ie camera).
I hadn't added any new programs or devices prior to this happening.

About a year + ago, we installed a new Video card (NVidea GE Force 8500 GT), and at the same time had a new power supply installed into the computer to support this video card. I don't *think* this is a power supply issue given the circumstances.

The "USB restart" also happens in safe mode.

Upon restart, I get a message saying the system has recovered from a serious error. Here are the error details:

C:\DOCUME~1\HP_ADM~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER5ab2.dir00\M ini071709-01.dmp
C:\DOCUME~1\HP_ADM~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER5ab2.dir00\s ysdata.xml

BCCode : fc BCP1 : F79E78E8 BCP2 : 24EEA963 BCP3 : F79E7848
BCP4 : 00000001 OSVer : 5_1_2600 SP : 3_0 Product : 256_1


Many thanks in advance for your help!!!

First thing you need to do is right click on My Computer, clickProperties, click Advanced tab then on the Start up and Recovery click the Settings button and uncheck Automatically Reboot, this should at least tell us what is causing the problem when you plug it in again you will get an error system.

Sounds kinda like an IRQ problem or you may not have enough power to supply all of the usb ports you are using. Try unplugging what does work and then plug one of the things that does not and see if that triggers an error.

You may want to try updating the usb drivers also.