[Cialug] OT: USB Issues

[Tim Wilson]

Hi all, this is OT from Linux, but hopefully someone can help.  This is
probably TL;DR, but I think details are important.

A couple of months ago, an overnight lightning storm struck close to our
house.  When I started working the next morning, I could hear a noise that
sounded like a fan was going out on my gaming PC.  I shut down the PC, and
the noise went away.  After further investigation, I discovered that the
noise was coming from my USB powered speakers.  They get power from a USB
port on my PC, but are connected to a monitor so it will get audio from
whichever input is selected (home or work).  I plugged the speakers into a
charge pack, and the noise went away.  This made me think I had larger
issues.

I had a WD external drive and a USB capture device hooked up.  The drive
has issues, I tried plugging it into my laptop and it wasn't recognized.  I
still need to try the capture device.  It does not work on the gaming PC.
Both the mouse and keyboard work.  But plugging an optical drive in, does
not seem to work.  The optical drive does work on my laptop, so I'm sure
it's fine.

This sounds like some part of USB is fried.  No USB-C, but it has USB 3.1
ports.  The external drive and capture device were plugged into the top USB
ports.  I've disconnected those, hoping the others would start working.
Are there any tools you would recommend, or any suggestions?

TIA!
-- 
Tim
Required reading: http://bccplease.com/