Can't sync with my sync cable .... for short while

I got into a tiny problem syncing my iPhone and iPad touch with the white sync cable that I have with my all the time.  This time I thing the problem is more on the machine that I sync with, which is my work machine Dell Precision 6400.  The odd thing was that it was working fine this morning.  I could update a set of podcast without any problem.  And then I did an LDAP update in my office network, did some reboot, and then I found that my machine couldn't recognize my iPod Touch.  Both iTune and iPhone Explorer recognizing the existing of my conncted i-device.  After stuggling for a while, I did a windows update, which has like 200+Mb of update pending.  I did that, reboot, and now everything is back to normal.  My computer has no problem recognizing my iPad and iPod Touch.

So honestly I still don't know exactly what the problem was.  There was a moment when I wonder if there's something wrong with the sync cable, but later I tend to think it's probably just the machine.  Well, at least things are back to normal now.