My USB ports have not been working for a long time. They will charge my phone, but windows doesnt pick them up nor any other device I connect via any of the USB ports. I recently took my computer into a shop to have them fix a wire that had come undone and asked them to look at my USB ports and figure out why they werent working. When I got it back they told me the USB ports were connected to the motherboard and to get them to work I would need to replace the motherboard. They said however that the Esata port worked and I asked them if I could use that to connect my USB from my iPhone in order to connect to itunes. They said with an adapter it should work. So I bought the adapter and of course when I connect the USB in to it, the computer wont recognize the device. I even tried connecting the USB directly into the Esata port and still nothing, but it will charge the phone, just not recognize it.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

The computer is a Dell Inspiron N7010 running Windows 7Did you try re-installing / updating the drivers? Sometimes some shops tend to directly jump onto the hardware when its actually software problem.
Also, Did you update the BIOS recently after which the problem might have started?What adapter did you get, as far as I'm aware it is not possible to convert eSATA to USB except possibly for use with a very specific range of external hard drives.Hi
Sorry to here about the laptop problem
Can you try restarting from cold start with a usb device plugged in and see if windows sees it?
 if it isn't DETECTED try checking with some programs how far the laptop is getting to detecting USB  DEVICES. Microsoft supplies a DIAGNOSTIC tool for this from here

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff560019(v=vs.85).aspx

If you run that and post a screen shot of the branch of the tree with a device plugged in and that branch opened

That will help diagnose if it is software or a motherboard / hardware FAULT 

Nirsoft supplies a program that is similar that allows you to remove all the usb device history.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

If there is a corrupted device driver installed this can cause new devices not to install. So clearing out all the old devices with nirsoft isn't a bad idea.


If the tech who looked at you laptop knew what he was doming, his assessment is likely correct. He should have made measurements of voltage and current readings.
If the readings are inside of specs, then  it must be a failure e in the chip-set.
Laptops no way to fix this problem with just a plug in device. In fact, there is mo room  inside the laptop to put another thing.

I don't  see where the laptop has a eSata port.

Some laptops have eSATA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESATAp
The article has flows.