I have a Lenovo X1 Carbon running Windows 7. It has 1 USB 2.0 and 1 USB 3.0 port. In the office I have the official Lenovo USB 3.0 "dock" which has a 5 port USB 3.0 hub, Display Link video and Ethernet. So this uses the USB 3.0 port on the laptop for the upstream connection.

When I plug a mouse into the Lenovo hub it works fine. The mouse also works when connected directly to the USB 3.0 port.

At home I just bought a laptop stand/riser which happened to include a little 4 port hub which is quite handy (I might buy another "dock" type unit later though). Plugging it into either of the laptop's USB ports and it's detected fine with no drivers required I think just as "Generic USB hub". Plugging in a Dell keyboard into the hub and it works just fine.

The problem comes with the mouse. It's an old MS Intellimouse. If I plug it into the 4 port USB hub it's simply not detected and doesn't power up. Nor is it detected when I plug it into the 2 ports built into the keyboard. This latter configuration definitely worked in Windows XP on my old machine (totally different Dell laptop). In that case though the keyboard was plugged into the Dell's docking station. There was no separate hub in between but the keyboard should be considered a hub.

I've seen this before where USB mice only seem to work on certain USB ports on both desktops and laptops. I presume this may be because some ports may be on downstream hubs but I don't understand why a mouse wouldn't work just because it's on a hub. Sure it might not be optimum and might be "laggy" but it should still work.

Any ideas? Writing this I was thinking of just trying a Linux live CD to prove it's not hardware, but I'm somewhat sure it isn't anyway. Googling didn't turn up much at all. I was surprised at that since I've seen similar things before. I thought it would be a common gripe.

Thanks