"Competing" Peripheral Devices

Is there a possible fix for a laptop (Compaq Evo 610n) that drops peripheral
devices for no reason?

For example, I have a DVD drive (E, a floppy drive (B, and a Visioneer
Strobe XP scanner connected (via USB). After restarting, the scanner and
floppy drive "disappear" and are inaccessible. In order to access them
again, it is necessary to restart the computer; however, after 30 - 45
minutes, they disappear again.

The closest information I have been told is that there are only x number of
IRQs available at a given time and if a device is not used, the computer
loses the connection. Is there a setting somewhere that I can change to
"force" these devices to stay connected?

Thank you.

It's unlikely that Microsoft Office is the source of the problem, you
might want to pose your question to a group for your operating system or
maybe a hardware group. It may be that your hardware cant support all
that usb stuff powerwise and drops it, but the folks in the correct
group would likely have some ideas.

JDC wrote:

Is there a possible fix for a laptop (Compaq Evo 610n) that drops peripheral
devices for no reason?

For example, I have a DVD drive (E, a floppy drive (B, and a Visioneer
Strobe XP scanner connected (via USB). After restarting, the scanner and
floppy drive "disappear" and are inaccessible. In order to access them
again, it is necessary to restart the computer; however, after 30 - 45
minutes, they disappear again.

The closest information I have been told is that there are only x number of
IRQs available at a given time and if a device is not used, the computer
loses the connection. Is there a setting somewhere that I can change to
"force" these devices to stay connected?

Thank you.