HANGING!! Now no Mouse.

[flareman]

I run a Gateway Family 6 machine; 128MB RAM; Win98SE.
For some weeks I've been hanging, several times a day. I tried disconnecting from my Network, defrags, AntiVirus checks, unloading all my background programs, and more, but no joy.

The symptom was always a slow down in the Mouse response and erratic movements, then "nothing", but I could close up my apps using the ALT key.

Then today during one of the many reboots, it said "...did not detect PS2 mouse....".
I put on a serial Mouse and now I'm flying again.
Can anyone tell me what's going on and give some advice. Obviously sticking with the serial mouse seems good but I don't want to ignore this if it's a warning sign of something I can cure. I tried leaving the PS2 mouse connected (as well as the serial mouse) during the reboot but then it takes over again and put me back in the problem.
The old PS2 mouse was a MS-wheel mouse. I'm not sure about the driver ("intellipoint"?) but I've not changed it.

David

 

[BuckeyeComputers]

sounds like your problem started with the failing of the mouse....try a different ps2 mouse if concerned more

 

[Mulga]

Yes, it is nearly sure to be a hardware issue, either the mouse itself or, less likesly, the controller on the motherboard. Try another PS2 mouse, if it also plays up you have a motherboard issue. I would uninstall the intellipont drivers first just to be sure.

Help us to help you, please post back and tell us if this helped.
All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

 

[ceh4702]

I have seen this occur when the processor overheats. Could be your fan is not running on your CPU Cooler. Many motherboards have systems to make them slow down (or shutdown) when the processor gets too hot. Wouldnt be the first time a fan quit. Everything wares out eventually.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[Cindy1]

I would have to say it is the mouse. I would go and get a new Logitech I have always been happy with them I have a cordless and it's great! The adapter on the bottom is a ps/2. You could also boot to a windows98 startup disk at the prompt type
C: enter
C: Scandisk enter
Then when it asks you if you want a surface scan say yes. You can let it do the whole thing but it will take awhile. I would suggest looking at the first area and what you are looking for are little red blocks. That would be a bad sector on your hard drive. That would cause locking. You should do it every once in a while anyway.
Cindy

 

[flareman]

Thanks for everyone's interest.

It does seem as though the specific mouse is at fault.
I had already done all the obvious things like running scandisk, unloading all my background apps, virus checks, defrags. I went "under the hood" and cleaned everything I could find (no fried spiders but plenty of dust) and no loose boards or chips and cleaned the mouse (didn't see anything wrong).

I can run with a regular MS mouse as a serial device or a PS2 (although I'm still holding my breath with the PS2)

What baffles me is, why did I see a degraded RAM (big time leakage) when I was having the problem. Normally I sit in the 20's and 30's (128 total) but I was down to 1 - 8 before?
AND, I can use the other (wheel) mouse on my other computer !!?? (although perhaps I haven't given it a fair shot yet)

As a side issue, I was a little disappointed that the last line in the manufacturer's recommendations said "reformat", rather than "send-it-back-to-us" but I guess that's life. They obviously knew how to stimulate me to solve my own problem.


David