MacBook Pro USB-C Ports Give Power but No Data — Drives & Keyboard Not Recognized After Move

Hi everyone — hoping someone can help confirm what’s going on here or offer any last ideas before I take it in.


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### 🔹 Background

For three full days after moving, I used my **MacBook Pro (Intel)** completely standalone —

**no charger, no hubs, no peripherals attached at all** — and everything worked perfectly.

Once I reconnected my setup, **none of my USB ports would recognize data devices anymore.**


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### 🔹 The Issue

- When I plug in **any USB-C hub or extender**, their **LED lights turn on**, so power delivery is fine.

- **Low-power devices** (like a fan or iPhone) **work** — they power or charge as expected.

- **Data devices** (USB keyboard, external drives, etc.) **don’t work at all** — not detected in Finder, Disk Utility, or System Information.

- I’ve tested **three different hubs** (both powered and unpowered) across **all USB-C ports** — same exact result each time.

- I can’t test drives or keyboard directly because they’re **USB-A only**, so I have to use a hub.


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### 🔹 What Makes It Even Stranger

- If I connect my **external monitor through HDMI on the same hub**, the **display works perfectly.**

→ So the hub’s Thunderbolt/DisplayPort video path is alive.

- The Mac **charges normally**, and **DisplayPort video** through USB-C or HDMI **works fine** — proving power and video lanes are intact.

- It’s *only the USB data portion* that’s completely dead.


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### 🔹 Diagnostics & Results

I ran several terminal commands to confirm:


**`system_profiler SPUSBDataType`**

> No USB devices detected.


**`ioreg -p IOUSB -w0 -l | grep -i "Voltage"`**

> (no output)


**`ioreg -p IOUSB -w0 -l | grep -i "CurrentAvailable"`**

> (no output)


**`system_profiler SPThunderboltDataType`**

> Shows both Thunderbolt buses (Bus 0 and Bus 1) as healthy, but with “No device connected.”

> Each bus reports firmware version 63.5, link controller 1.43.0, and “Speed: Up to 40 Gb/s.”


So Thunderbolt itself seems fine, but USB devices aren’t enumerating at all.


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### 🔹 What I’ve Already Tried

- SMC reset ✅

- NVRAM reset ✅

- Booted into macOS Recovery ✅

- Confirmed all hubs and drives work fine on another machine ✅

- macOS reinstall failed due to low space (currently clearing storage)

- Tried every port and hub configuration — no difference


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### 🔹 What This Appears To Be

At this point:

- Power delivery ✅ Works

- DisplayPort / HDMI video ✅ Works

- USB 2.0 / 3.x data ❌ Dead


That pattern means the **Thunderbolt/USB4 controller is alive**, but the **USB data lanes inside it have failed or are electrically hung**.

SMC and NVRAM resets didn’t help, so this points to a **hardware-level USB controller failure on the logic board**, not a firmware issue.


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### 💡 What I’m Asking

Has anyone seen this before — where:

- All ports still deliver power and video,

- But **no USB data devices** work (across multiple hubs and ports),

- And all resets and reinstalls fail to fix it?


If so, did replacing the **logic board** or **Thunderbolt controller** restore USB data?


Also curious if anyone’s found success with a **Thunderbolt dock that has its own controller chip** (like the CalDigit TS4 or OWC Thunderbolt Dock), since that might bypass the dead internal USB data path.


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**System info:**

- MacBook Pro (Intel)

- macOS “Tahoe”

- All ports tested

- Three different hubs

- iPhone charges, monitor works via HDMI, but drives and keyboard not recognized


Thanks for reading — and for any advice or confirmation.

At this point, it looks like a partial USB controller failure, but I’d love to be sure before taking it in.


— **Sergio**


MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 26.0

Posted on Oct 30, 2025 4:17 PM

Reply
1 reply

Oct 30, 2025 6:13 PM in response to SergioQ

It sounds like your laptop has a hardware failure of some sort. It will either be a bad I/O Board(s) and/or a bad Logic Board.


You can try rotating the USB-C connector 180º upside down to see if that may make a difference if the USB-C port is half bad just to limp along. However, since all of the USB-C ports are having the problem, I doubt this will make any difference.


FYI, I don't recommend spending any money to repair any Intel Mac with USB-C ports for multiple reasons. The money spent on repairs is much better put towards a new laptop.

MacBook Pro USB-C Ports Give Power but No Data — Drives & Keyboard Not Recognized After Move

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