all usb stopped working

[shaithis]

Another possibility is a pair of usb headphones, most bypass the soundcard, so you don't need a soundcard for them to work.

Having tried a few pairs of USB headphones, the one thing they all had in common was appalling sound quality. So be wary.

[vinnyT]

Having tried a few pairs of USB headphones, the one thing they all had in common was appalling sound quality. So be wary.

Thanks for that, I've never used them, just putting them out as a possibility.

[Splash]

I've not checked, but there's not many motherboards these days that *don't* have some sort of onboard soundcard.

As for USB headphones I guess you get what you pay for - my Plantronics DSP400 is pretty awesome, though that said I only use it for voice comms.

[rguym]

Today, Feb 24 2009, I had a similiar problem with my laptop a Toshiba Satellite 1415-S173, running Microsoft windows XP pro. My internal DVD-rom (sd-2212) was not found. It was "yellow flagged", in the Hardware Device manager. I tried to install the drivers using two external usb-attached Dvd and a cd player. Both also were not found and "yellow flagged" by the Device manager.
I used the device manager to update the drivers but, it couldn't find "any better drivers than what're already being used". I plugged in a thumb drive with all the drivers loaded. The thumb drive was found and I could open it. But, the device manager still would not update the drivers even when selecting the thumb drive as the location to find the drivers.
I rebooted the laptop into Linux (PCLOS 2007), the internal dvd drive worked, so did the external usb attached dvd/cd drives. I hooked the two external dvd/cd drives and plugged them into a desktop also running Win XP (home edition though). They worked fine. I gave up on the Toshiba laptop for today.Good luck. If I find an answer I will post it.