Computer Restarts On Plugging USB Printer / Hard Disk / External DVD Writer

Trouble:

We received a mail from one of our readers Jay telling :

My computer restarts when a USB device is inserted. Its works when i plug in my keyboard and mouse (both USB) but when i try plugging in my external hard-drive, printer or external dvd drive the computer restarts as soon as i plug them in. Tried to update drivers for my pc but with no results.

We have written about a problem : Computer Restarts On Inserting Pen Drive , but this article talks of software problem and not the one which Jay has reported. The problem reported by Jay is a hardware related problem, so has different solution. In this article we will discuss the reason and solution to this problem.

Fix:

If your computer is re-starting on inserting a USB pen drive (not USB hard disk) , see our tutorial – Computer Restarts On Inserting Pen Drive

If your computer re-starts on inserting USB external hard disk, or USB DVD writer or USB printer or any other USB device which extracts power from USB port, then it might be either BIOS or Motherboard problem or it can be a problem with the Power Supply Unit of your computer.

Try the USB hard disk or printer on some other computer to ensure that the device you are connecting to your computer is healthy. After that try plugging a pen drive to the USB port and see if that works ? If the pen drive works fine on the port, then it means that the USB port is able to run small devices which extract very little power from USB (like a small pen drive), while the same USB port is not capable to supply enough power to the USB devices which need more power than a small drive like en external hard disk or external DVD writer.

The solution to this this problem would be to upgrade your desktop computer’s Main power supply unit (also called SMPS unit) and replace it with one which had a good load capacity. But if the problem lies on the Motherboard circuitry or BIOS settings, it might not solve the problem even by replacing the Power supply unit. So before changing the power supply unit, we recommend you to do a BIOS upgrade and check in your BIOS that all power related settings are set to default values.

If you have a solution to share, please share through the comments below.

Author + Admin: Abhishek Bhatnagar
Hi, I am a Software Engineer by profession and blogger by passion, I write about computer tips and tricks and solutions for computer problems. You can connect with me at twitter or know more about me on www.abhishekbhatnagar.com.