Comment 173 for bug 88746

I've had the same problem, but just on my front ports. And I'm pretty sure it is because the wires are longer, and of lower quality, to the front ports. The back ports are connected directly to mainboard, via a riser. Usb 1.1 devices (such as mice and keyboards) work at the front ports, but not usb 2.0 devices (such as camera or memory sticks). If I unload usb-ehci it works.

So IMO, a solution to this could be some sort of fallback. If usb 2.0 doesn't work, try 1.1, and then notify the user. Win xp does this for my front ports. I don't know if this is hard to implement, I'm no kernel hacker. I was just about to post a feature request about this thing when I found this bug.

I have a ASUS P4C800 motherboard, with intel 875 chipset, and an Antec Sonata case (the original model). And I think the wires from the case are to blame in this case.