11.2 Troubleshooting the Hardware Box
11.2.8 Ports
Port problems are typically diagnosed with a slow performing or inoperative peripheral device. There are several common symptoms:
  • Completely inoperative port
  • "Device not found error" error message
  • Peripheral device is slow, or performance is bad

In general, port problems can be attributed to one of the following situations:

  • A bad cable connection
  • Peripheral device is inoperative
  • Software problems
  • Outdated or missing drivers
  • Bad port

Common port/connection problems are usually found on the following ports:

  • Parallel (IEEE 1284)
  • Serial
  • USB
  • FireWire (IEEE1394)
  • AGP Video:
    • AGP x1-x4 Vis AGP Pro

These ports are variously discussed in Chapter 2, "How Computers Work", and Chapter 3, "Assembling a Computer".