I have an Acer Aspire 5630 and the USB ports do not go off when Windows is shutdown, hibernating or when it goes into slleep (standby) mode. They only go off when I disconnect the AC power. I just bought an external USB drive as my internal is almost full, but I don't want to have the external drive on 24/7. Disconnecting the drive is a bit inconvenient as I use the laptop with an external display and keyboard and keep the laptop itself hidden behind my desk. I updated the BIOS to Ver. 3.60, but I don't see settings in the BIOS for USB ports. Can these ports be turn off programatically. Do I need a special Acer Application or drivers to turn off the USB ports? I removed all the Acer Management bloatware that came with the laptop. Are there any jumpers inside the laptop that need to be changed? Any Suggestions?

Thanks in advance..

I am just using the following question as an example to understand the issue correctly.

Are you saying that when the notebook is being shutdown, the USB optical mouse still shows some light?

cheers ...

No, what I'm saying is that "all" the USB ports are still powered up after the computer shuts down, goes to sleep or hibernates. Because of this... the external USB hard drive stays on. In Windows if you look under Device Manager -> USB ports and under the Power Management tab... you'll see two settings. "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" and "Allow this device to wake up the computer". My understanding is that by selecting the first option the laptop should cut power to the the specific USB port whenever the laptop is shutdown, is hibernating or is put to sleep. This is the way it works in my other laptop.

I'll take a shot at this tamanaco. From my own experience, some very cheap USB hubs (price-wise and quality-wise) do not integrate properly with Windows. I bought two 7-port USB hubs from an eBay vendor, that came with their own A/C power adapters, but are completely unusable.

After connecting the hub to the power strip--and to my computer, which was shut down--I turned the power strip on, and then connected my cooling mat and ext. HDD to the hub, both of which turned on immediately. I was also greeted with noise across the entire AM radio band as long as the USB hub was plugged in. When the computer was turned on and then shut down again, the USB devices wouldn't turn off. This happened with both 7-port USB hubs that were purchased from the vendor.

Once the original Iomega 4-plex USB hub--which also has its own AC power--was reinstalled, the USB devices turn off when they're supposed to, and there's no AM band noise on the radio.

Is this the problem you're having?

No, I'm connecting the external drive "directly" into one the USB ports of the 5630. No hubs or separated external power source connected to the external drive. It's a WD Passport that is powered directly from the USB port. When I connect this drive to my other laptop it's powered off whenever I shutdown or put the computer to sleep... because the USB port no longer supplies power to the drive.

Give this a read and try that:
http://club.myce.com/f7/still-power-...utdown-156337/