Failing Front USB Ports

Hello all-
I have the "old" Twister Extreme Case with the flip-up front port access panel, housing 2 USB ports, sound jack, and 2 other ports.\

For the longest time, I only used one of the USB ports for digital camera download (infrequent). Now that I've added use of iPhone, Flip, etc., and the port use has gone dramatically up, the port I historically used stopped working about 3 months ago. Now the second port and the sound/headphones jack have also stopped working. All other USB ports on the back of the rig are OK.

I have tried various combinations of disable/enable, uninstall/reinstall, with unplugging + overnight wait/not unplugging, ensuring most current drivers for system, etc. but cannot get these ports to reactivate.

As the sound jack to the sound card is also involved, I am suspecting a wiring/wear problem to the flip-up module vs. a Mobo problem. However, I can't figure out how to get the Twister flip-up module out to be able to investigate. Anyone know how to get this thing out? Or something else I should be trying?

Thanks-

Tom