I finally learned to check these first before jumping into the software or running to the computer store. A good lesson for anyone else interested...

I have a board in the PC -- don't remember what it's called -- that plugs into mother board and give me 6 more USB ports. I have all of them being used. Yesterday, all the USB devices connected to that board stopped working. Figured it was the board or bad connections. Shut it down and tried pulling it out and back in a few times -- didn't help. So I pulled out the bard and saw the top had a good 1/16 inch of dust. Brushed it off good with a dry toothbrush, put it back in and working again.

Note to self -- try the simple first, dummy.