Windows 10 laptop will not recognise USB mice or keyboards

I am looking at a Windows 10 laptop (a surface pro 3), that will not recognise USB mice or keyboards. The USB port is happy with storage devices (including microcontrollers), USB UART devices, USB Video capture devices, USB Ethernet adaptors. It is able to connect to a Bluetooth mouse. The mice and keyboards I have tried work in other Windows 10 laptops (a Dell) and non windows computers. But any USB keyboard or mouse, I've tried multiple times, result in the same messages: The Last USB Device you connected malfunctioned and windows does not recognise it Then in device manager, it has a yellow

Question by Danny Staple on Super User, licensed CC BY-SA. We show a short excerpt and link to the original thread as credit.