Thanks for all of the advise everyone. Unfortunately, none of this worked and my problem is not uncommon with Dell Inspiron laptops. After hours of troubleshooting, they recommended that I replace the motherboard to the tune of $450-600. Screw that! I ended up ordering a PCMIA USB card off of ebay with two ports. Then I ran to Walmart and picked up a small self-powered USB hub to run to the card. Everything is up and running. I now how 5 ports (more than before) at a total cost of $35