Hi all.
Strange message title that I can only answer it myself with "wires" but hopefully somebody would have something more useful to point me to.
Situation:
An Intel mobo with 2.6 P4 chip, lots of other stuff and a MS PS2 Intellimouse with a wheel.
This machine and a couple of other computers, connect to a switch box (keyboard, mouse, monitor). Through the switchbox I access any of these computers.
Sometime ago, the Intel mobo and its P4 chip burned out. I replaced them with an Asus mobo and a 3.2 P4.
The system/software works as before but the mouse is completely dead when I boot into Windows.
If I boot with a DOS diskette, it works fine.
If I boot into Windows is dead as I said, but if I now switch to another machine using the switcher's buttons, it works fine.
So the mouse and the switch are fine therefore it must be software-related.
Everybody suggested reformatting the disks and starting over but that's unacceptable.
Since then, I've upgraded with SP2, then, just in case, installed Windows again over itself using a CD with SP2 incorporated.
Nothing. At no point did the mouse come alive.
I'm using a USB mouse now (its cable reaches to my left side only and you can imagine how twisted I get) but it's pretty cumbersome with two mice in front of me.
Question:
How can I force the low-level mouse drivers to refresh? Or is there another way?
Thanks for any suggestions and sorry for the long message. Unrelated to the board's purposes but since I couldn't get an answer anywhere else and couldn't think of any more technical collection of minds in one place, I couldn't refuse. Ignore or delete it if it offends anyone.
Regards.

So, if I understood correctly, a USB mouse connected directly to the computer works OK, but through the switch refuses to work???

If that is the case, the switch interphase and the driver do not handshake correctly.
Does the switch have a driver? Can you update it? can you borrow another switch and see if the problem repeats? Can you try a OS2 mouse instead, what about a new USB mouse, but do not accept the default driver that Windows XP offers, and force it ti take the vendor's driver during detection/installation, or, uninstall the current mouse from the hardware list, and when you reconnect (is it detected?) force the vendor's driver, or, find out the name of the mouse driver and physically delete it from the disk (system32 folder usually) or. . .
ask the question in this or another board again and see if you have better luck

Don't worry, anything can be posted in the off-topic forum as long as it's not offensive or illegal (or in some other way breaks the board rules).

As for the mouse drivers, I guess you already know that drivers can be "refreshed" from the Device Manager in Windows?

And I agree with naides, those switches are often the source of problems, doing something slightly non-standard that only works with some computers and such...

I can advise you to give up on this. I had exactly the same problem as you using a Belkin KVM switch. My intellimouse worked fine for 6months, then at random the red "tail-light" flicked on and off and the mouse became unresponsive. Events were logged to the eventlog about i8042prt (or similar) timeouts. I tried the mouse directly on the PS2 port, it worked fine. I emailed Belkin, they said that they had heard of this problem and didn't support Intellimice (even though the box cl;early says they do, grr). Anyway another few months went by and the same thing happened with the mouse direct on the PS2 port.

The only solution I've found is to use Intellimice on USB only.

Thank you all for the comments.
I'm afraid none of the above applies in this case.
1) The switch works since it used to talk to the mouse up to the mobo change and it can still talk to it from two other computers. The switch has no drivers and the only bad experience I had with another one a few years ago, was when it couldn't handle the frequencies of a new graphics card I had bought.
2) A major point I neglected to mention because I thought it would be standard procedure for everyone, me first of all, was that I connected the mouse directly to the PC with the new mobo. Still dead as nails.
3) Another major point, same reason as above, is that I tried with another PS2 mouse. Vanilla PS2 compatible, no intellimouse, no wheel. Dead on this PC, works with the others.
4) And similarly another point, I've uninstalled all mice-related drivers and the keyboard, rebooted, the system detected them automatically. Both keyboard and the PS2 mouse. Except that the mouse was still dead as nails.
No warnings in the device panel, no errors when I run hardware diagnostics with a number of various programs, no event viewer errors. Nada. Everything thinks the mouse is there and works fine.
This mouse really gets me frustrated. Where do the mouse messages go?
I've scanned for trojans, keyloggers, viruses, registry errors, disk errors, wrong driver versions etc, using a big number of different scanners, I've reset back and forth the BIOS option to activate the mouse. Nothing. My system is sparkling clean. (Maybe that's the problem. Too clean to support mice running around).
There's only one scenario I can think of that might explain it but I'm not sure of the way this stuff works.
Say the PS2 port on the computer was bad (e.g. loose pin connection) even though the BIOS doesn't detect any errors with it (should it?).
Now, I know XP detects there's a mouse on PS2.
Does it do it by really accessing the port and interrogating the mouse, or does it just look at whatever settings have been specified in the BIOS?
Hmm. Maybe something to do with PnP, ACPI?

I also had intermittent problems with a wireless mouse used through a KVM. When switching between buttons on the KVM the wireless mouse would lose the USB signal and simply unplugging the USB cable and replugging it in again seemed to reestablish the connection. In that circumstance, I was always using the USB mouse through a PS2 post on the KVM through an adapter and something in the adapter was not making a full USB connection. Unpluging and replugging always seemed to solve the problem, but not an elegant solution.

I have since purchased a new version Belkin KVM with USB support, but the USB support is only for things other than the keyboard and mouse. I'm still using it with adapters for the keyboard and house, but this one doesn't seem to have a problem recognizine the logitech wireless keyboard or the logitech wireless mouse when I switch between computers, at least most of the time. Still, every once and a while it does not recognize the mouse (but still recognizes the keyboard), but unplugging/replugging still solves the problem. So my best guess is that there is something in the signal from the USB products which is not completely compatible with the PS2 mouse signal and sometimes it screws up. I would still suspect it is the KVM and not the Motherboard.

Regards,

This changes things a bit.
But, if you boot with DOS or LINUX(have you tried it) the mouse works. I doubt it is some loose wire tip in the connector, or it would be fucked in all OS environments. I think the problem is in then Mother board /mouse conversation when the windows XP driver is involved. Talk to the MB manufacturer



Try to update the mouse driver to another, vendor provided one, using the device manager and pointing to your freshly d/l one, see what happens,

Or get into the exciting world of device drivers debugging, and trace the fucker in two machines, one that works and the one that doesn't, compare and fix.

Another thing, do you have softice installed in your computer? it uses its own low level mouse driver (Some times with very annoying consequences) does the mouse work when you activate Sice window?




Advice from an old cracker, forget about it for a couple of days, enjoy the weekend, then come back with a fresh approach. You may be overlooking something big and obvious. . .

1) You're right about the problem not being in the pin connections since it works in DOS. (You just killed my only idea.) It works in Linux too (Knoppix version) as well as when I boot up with a BartPE CD built on the XP SP2 kernel..
2) It can't be the switch since I have the same problem when I connect directly to the PC. I don't use any wireless devices either but I have quite a few USB ones.
3) Updating with another driver is an option but how? It's a generic Microsoft PS2 mouse. I don't have any driver diskette for it and it's support is built into Windows.
4) I have Softice of course. Up to XP SP1 and the old mobo, the mouse in Softice and everywhere else, used to work. After the mobo change, it stopped. After XP SP2 (I upgraded after the mobo change), still didn't work.
5) Talking to Asus about it, won't get me far. I've asked in the Asus forum and nobody had this problem.
6) Relaxing for the weekend sounds good but it will not give me any answers I'm afraid. This mobo change, when the problem started, was around May. I've changed a couple of BIOS versions since then but no changes to the mouse behavior.
Weird, isn't it?
I think I used to have a program that would show me the driver chain for a device. I'll try and locate it. Maybe I have something in this system that intercepts the mouse calls and it has been corrupted. It can't be Softice (I had uninstalled it to check this) and it can't be Intellipoint (for the same reason).

You have entered the 4th dimension of computers. When shit just plain wont work.

New MOBO mousie dont work on PS2 >>BUT<< works on USB.

One would have to think that the new board would be able to handle the ages old PS2 drivers. Makes sense doesnt it ????

New MOBO mousie works in DOS >>BUT<< not in Windows.

Once again, no PS2 driver support ???

Mousie works through the switch to other machines.

If you have the same chipset in another comp you could try to switch boards but, I think you should replace the Asus board.

Woodmann

Problem solved!
I tried again what Naides suggested about forcing new drivers.
Here's what happened:
1) I removed Softice, just in case, rebooted and got the dead mouse for my efforts.
2) I removed again keyboard and mouse drivers, rebooted, system found and installed them. It claimed everything worked fine but mouse was dead. The mouse driver was an original Windows XP one from 1991. Mouse was shown as "Microsoft PS/2 port mouse".
3) I installed Intellipoint 5.2, removed the mouse driver, rebooted, the system identified and installed the driver.
The mouse got alive again.
The driver was dated 6/3/2004 and identified as "Microsoft PS/2 port mouse (Intellipoint)".
4) Reinstalled Softice and the mouse still works. Back in business.
It was a driver problem after all.
What I think happened, is that the old driver used to work in the old system but not the new one, because of the difference in speed. Maybe it could handle the 2.6GHz but not the 3.2. Probably a bug in its timing routine. It was a 1991 version after all.
Well, one down and I can spend some time trying to straighten my twisted wrist and shoulder.
Thank you all for the suggestions and help. I would have given up again on my own.
Take care.

It always warms my heart to see such a thing get resolved, congrats.

Humans: 1
Computers: 95907869734832608260

And here I was thinking I might be correct for once

Woodmann

Woodmann, I've just stolen your quote for my sig.. Classic

Woodmann was correct when he said "we" always blame him when something goes wrong with the server. So he was correct at least once.



Regards,

Howdy,

Hey Silver, dont think that by quoting me your gonna get anything for free


Does anyone remember the old days when there was no driver available so you tried every one you could find just to make the printer print text ???


Woodmann

Now that I read the solution to the problem again, I thought it was the old XP driver, You know, the one from 1991 ?? I think that would cause a problem

Damn near everything from 1991 causes a problem, if one is still running it with XP.

Regards,

You got me wondering about that 1991 but I'm not about to put back the old MS driver and verify it
I must have put the wrong number and 2001 sounds more like it (fingers don't type what the mind thinks sometimes).
In any case, it's not a driver I put there. It came with the original XP Pro. I've put service packs in after that, but never a mouse driver other than Intellipoint.
Regards.