Results 1 to 10 of 10

Thread: USB mouse problem

  1. #1
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    United Kingdom: Bridlington
    Posts
    17,188

    USB mouse problem

    I have encountered the USB mouse of death!

    The machine is a 2.17 GHz single core with 1.5Gb of RAM and a single 160Mb PATA drive running Vista Home Premium SP2.

    I connected the USB mouse and keyboard from a nearby XP Pro SP3 box and tried to boot. At first it wouldn't, then I got to the BIOS screen that gave me a hard drive error message.

    I was contemplating taking out the HDD and slaving it to another machine to run diagnostics, but decided to use Hiren's boot CD instead.

    I got to the Hiren's screen and realised that neither the mouse nor keyboard were working..........I tried different USB slots with no effect.

    OK, I thought, I will try PS2, and disconnected the mouse, at which point the keyboard numlock light came on????????????????

    I attached a PS2 mouse and rebooted and the machine went into Windows just fine..............there is nothing wrong with the HDD!!!!!

    I have not seen anything like this before, but have made a mental note to check the boot with all USB devices disconnected in future. In this case it took me to the Windows login screen.

    It would have been a waste of money to buy a new HDD and go through reinstalling the software.

    I know the mouse worked on the XP box, but haven't tried a different USB one on the Vista machine yet.

  2. #2
    rebmeM roineS enilnOitnA steve.milner's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Posts
    1,021
    Nihil,

    could the mouse & keyboard have drawn enough current to overload the psu for the box, and hence prevent the hdd from spinning up correctly.

    I have had similar problem with low power silent PC plugging in heavy drain usb devices.

    Regards,

    Steve
    IT, e-commerce, Retail, Programme & Project Management, EPoS, Supply Chain and Logistic Services. Yorkshire. http://www.bigi.uk.com

  3. #3
    AOs Resident Troll
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Posts
    3,152
    I agree....have seen some funny issues with USB devices and older machines....not that old PA 1 gig ram

    We have some test equipment that uses a usb connection and have serious performance issues with them, I think is the MB and the CPU, FSB.....and all over lack of power

    Stick a new machine on the bench and performance improves almost 2 fold.

    MLF
    How people treat you is their karma- how you react is yours-Wayne Dyer

  4. #4
    HYBR|D
    Guest
    Johnno, there should be a selection choice in the BIOS menu that will allow you to choose from either ps/2 or USB.

    Here's one i prepared earlier.
    Last edited by HYBR|D; August 30th, 2010 at 12:36 AM.

  5. #5
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    United Kingdom: Bridlington
    Posts
    17,188
    Good thinking there HYBR|D

    I looked at the BIOS and there are two options to enable/disable both the mouse and the keyboard. However, both were set to disabled and the USB keyboard worked

    I reset to enabled and the USB mouse (any variety) still kills the system.

    I think that I might have a BIOS corruption situation here?...........the box has "dual BIOS" so I think I will try restoring.

    It messes around on startup looking for SCSI/SATA RAID arrays..............

    God knows what it was in its previous life

  6. #6
    HYBR|D
    Guest
    hey Johnno, boot up with just a normal ps/2 mouse and see what appears in Device manager?

    also change the drive detection to IDE and that will stop it looking for SCSI/SATA Raid on boot.

    on these netbooks if you happen to do a clean default re-install of windows it gives the cannot boot error complaining about not finding the hard drive, if you enter the BIOS and change it to IDE it boots fine

    have you looked in the advance menu in the BIOS i think it was a CTRL F or something to make it appear haven't messed with BIOS's for ages so carn't remember the exact key combo.

  7. #7
    Keeping The Balance CybertecOne's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    660
    I believe that the blue screen HDD error may be relating to any USB drives connected, and not your HDD.

    Assuming that the USB port works well typically, both with other USB mouses and with storage devices. Testing both eliminates any problems with the wiring and bus communication.

    Assuming that the USB mouse works well typically on other computers in normal circumstance... well that just leaves a few questions

    1) Did the USB mouse work ok within the Hiren's boot CD environment (GUI?)

    If so then it very well may be a driver issue with windows, which may also account for bogus BSOD messages.

    Otherwise there is a good chance that a file sys repair may work; From a command prompt type 'sfc /?'

    And finally, perhaps the BIOS is a little buggy and a flash update will fix (or fry) the issue (or mainboard)

    Have fun!


    CTO
    "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius --- and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."
    - Albert Einstein

  8. #8
    Keeping The Balance CybertecOne's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2004
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    660
    And the longest shot of all....... have you installed MS IntelliType Pro software and installed it before connecting the mouse

    http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/do...px?category=mk
    "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius --- and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction."
    - Albert Einstein

  9. #9
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    United Kingdom: Bridlington
    Posts
    17,188
    on these netbooks if you happen to do a clean default re-install of windows it gives the cannot boot error complaining about not finding the hard drive, if you enter the BIOS and change it to IDE it boots fine
    I have seen similar with reloading XP onto a laptop. You try to install SATA drivers and it asks you to insert disk into drive A:\. This is NOT the CD/DVD drive. You need to go into BIOS and set it to EIDE (PATA) compatibility; load Windows XP, then the SATA software, then reboot, so that you can change the BIOS settings...............Windows will then detect new hardware and away you go.

    1. The machine I am talking about works just fine with a PS/2 mouse and keyboard.
    2. I attached a 4 port USB extension hub and it crashed. Like it just instantly powered down.
    3. I rebooted from the mains socket (power up button did not work) and it accepted the USB hub.
    4. I plugged 2 USB memory sticks into the hub, and they were instantly recognised

    I cannot disable the bootup search.............it looks for SATA drives and a RAID array, then reports that there are none connected and continues to boot from the PATA drive. I guess that is just a crude way of handling mixed drive types or a broken RAID array?

    I guess I have just "scored" a new USB keyboard and mouse

    I still need to find out how it reacts to a USB games controller, and a camera.

    1) Did the USB mouse work ok within the Hiren's boot CD environment (GUI?)
    No, I got the GUI, but no input devices were recognised, and the keyboard lights were off (num lock, caps lock)

    If so then it very well may be a driver issue with windows, which may also account for bogus BSOD messages.
    That is an excellent thought CTO!.............I will look into it.

    I am beginning to suspect that this machine just doesn't like Vista

  10. #10
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Myrtle Beach, SC
    Posts
    238
    whenever i encounter a bios problem, i like to pop out the cmos battery to clear all the settings and then manually set them. sometimes the reset to default just doesnt work like i want it too.

Similar Threads

  1. Serious Problem
    By IcSilk in forum Operating Systems
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: October 30th, 2005, 11:01 PM
  2. PS/2 Mouse problem. plz read...
    By Konshuss in forum Hardware
    Replies: 12
    Last Post: September 2nd, 2005, 05:17 PM
  3. Genral Windows Tips
    By Nokia in forum Tips and Tricks
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: June 12th, 2004, 05:36 PM
  4. Video card problem on Free BSD 4.7
    By sweet_angel in forum *nix Security Discussions
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: October 17th, 2002, 12:48 PM
  5. C problem...
    By Rna in forum General Programming Questions
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: May 22nd, 2002, 07:03 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •