Where is the USB port on my Dell laptop

Have you tried updating the drivers for the laptop? There may be specific USB drivers, chipset drivers as well.

Try it in Safe mode, or

try a Live Linux disc and see if it works.

Just because Device Manager doesn't throw an error, doesn't mean you have the correct driver installed. What I do is download the driver CAB file, extract it, and point Device Manager to that folder when installing the driver. Did you push out an image to it? Or does it still have the original settings in place? This type of situation is especially common if a stock image is installed on the machine.

Looks like this is the CAB file you're looking for:

//en.community.dell.com/techcenter/enterprise-client/w/wiki/6235.latitude-3340-windows-7-driver...

type your service tag into dells support site and download the chipset drivers.

Install that, reboot and try again.

First off though, do you get any yellow exclamation marks in Device Manager?

Ignore that last part,I re-read your initial post

These 10 laptops were unboxed, configured, and updated on site. No image was used. Since none of the other identically configured laptops are having the same issue, I doubt it is the driver but I will give it a shot. Trying safe mode now to see if anything is interfering with it.

Try Andre's suggestion of a Linux Live CD to confirm that it's not a software issue.

Have you tried uninstalling the port in Device Manager then rebooting the system to have it re-discover the device?

Your best bet since it is with a new laptop is to call Dell.

J. Bolton,

Thank you for choosingLatitude 3340.

One way to find out if it's a hardware issue or not, is by using a bootable USB drive. I personally use Windows 7 ISOs for this test. Although there are smaller things to use. :]

If your bootable thumb drive will boot from one port and not the other [ using the F12 menu ], then we have a hardware issue with that one port.

If you need service, please direct message me your first/last name, service tag, company name and email address. I'll make this easy.

You might want to physically check the pins on the port too. Certain peripherals make it easy to place accidentalstrain on the port andsome types of memory stick design even make it easier to bend the contacts if you don't get the alignment right when plugging it in. Other than that it sounds like it might be a USB 3.0 port requiring chipset software like already has been mentioned. Is the port blue in appearance?

Thanks for the input guys. It was easier for me to make a Ubuntu bootable USB drive than it would have been to find a Win7 iso, but the results were the same. Booted to Linux from the working USB drive and was not able to get it to recognize the mouse, so it isn't Windows. I also tried booting from the USB plugged into the problem port, and it didn't even show up as an available boot option.

Long story short, it definitely seems to be a hardware issue. Justin, I'll be sending you a PM soon.

@Feisty84: one of my coworkers mentioned the same thing, and it seems likely since the user was fiddling with USB cables when they noticed it stopped working. Since the mouse lights up it seems like the power pins are working, but the data is not transferring. I looked closely and could not see any obvious difference between the two ports.