Dumb user

[eamonhotep]

This is from this morning. I seem to get at least one each day.

Someone put in a help ticket about a dead mouse. I brought one down and they already had a USB trackball and a 3button PS2. Neither worked, but the trackball had a USB to PS2 converter on it. Why? Who knows, there are four USB ports that are sitting there empty.

So I get the trackball plugged in and working and say,

<me>"Okay looks like the PS2 port on the computer is bad"
<him>"Oh, so the mouse is bad?"
<me> "No, the port on the back of the PC is bad"
<him>"Wait a minute"

He goes to a cabinet and pulls out another PS2 mouse, plugs it in.

<me>"The port is bad on the computer"
<him>"Well could the trackball be cancelling out the others?"
<me>"No, this plugs into a USB port and the others go into the PS port, which is broken."

He stares at the trackball and then the other three mice.

<him>"So all these are broken?"
<me>"No, the port on the back of the PC is broken."
<him>"Well I don't want to use the trackball mouse"
<me>Okay, I can go see if there is a spare USB mouse around."
<him>"Great!"

Scoops up the other three mice

<him>"Can I keep these?!"

I walk off to shoot myself.

[nihil]

eamonhotep,

I do hope that you rebooted after connecting the new PS2 mouse?

I always carry a serial mouse for troubleshooting:

1. You can plug it in with the system running.
2. Default drivers will run it.
3. It will work in safe mode.
4. They are dirt cheap.

[eamonhotep]

Yeah I did. It's an older PC, mass produced Dell and they are held together by duct tape right now. I actually had another box to replace this one, but the CPU fan died when I booted it up in the office, not kidding. So I just hunted down a spare USB mouse and he is happy.