moonlite wrote:
I have a computer that was custom built at a computer show a few years
ago and it worked very nicely until lately. My son mistakenly tried
inserting the speaker plug into one of the USB ports on the back.
Suddenly I lost functionality in both keyboard and mouse, so I am
unable to communicate with the computer. The lights on the keyboard do
not light up when I turn the computer on. I replaced keyboard and
mouse without success. The computer still turns on normally and I
hate to just throw it if this problem can be solved. I'm running
Windows XP. Any computer geniuses out there ? Thank you for any help
or tips you can give !

I had a similar problem recently and clearing (resetting) the bios fixed it.

Mark Z.