[techtalk] dead mouse

[ktb]

On Sat, Jun 23, 2001 at 03:48:32PM +0100, Conor Daly wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 23, 2001 at 10:53:21AM +0100 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, 
> James A. Sutherland thought:
> > On Fri, 22 Jun 2001 23:40:57 -0500, you wrote:
> > 
> > >David Merrill wrote:
> > >> 
> > >> Hi all,
> > >> 
> > >> My mouse suddenly died on me. Occasionally I can get it to move, but
> > >> then it moves jerkily and coasts to the side of the screen. All 3
> > >> buttons still work. I've tried two other meeces which both do the same
> > >> thing, which afaics rules out the mouse itself.
> > >> 
> > >> I haven't done anything at all with any conf files.
> > >> 
> > >> Does anyone have any suggestions on what might be wrong, or how I
> > >> might go about debugging this?
> > 
> > > My recollection is that the X and Y signals are
> > >on two different wires,
> > 
> > Not to the PC they aren't - at least, not with serial, PS/2 and USB
> > mice. It's just a serial stream of relative coordinates and button
> > status. Acorn's proprietary mice used to do this, IIRC - what kind of
> > mouse is it?
> > 
> > > so since the problem is mouse
> > >idependent, my guess would be that the problem is on the
> > >other side of the mouse/computer interface ...
> > 
> > I'd agree the problem is the PC side of things, but I doubt it's
> > hardware. More likely to be a driver problem: you get very similar
> > results if you have the wrong mouse type configured, since the driver
> > then interprets the coordinates the mouse sends wrongly...
> > 
> 
> I get behaviour like this using a KVM (Keyboard, Vidoe, Mouse) switch to
> share inputs between three boxes.  switching from X to console and back
> resets the mouse but maybe only because gpm runs for consoles and the
> switch to console invokes the gpm driver and the switch back to X
> reinvokes the X mouse driver (spouting nonsense now!).  I presume you
> restarted X for each mouse change?
> 

FWIW I get this when using the hot-keys to switch with my KVM.  If I use
the buttons on the actual KVM cube the mouse works fine.  This happens
whether gpm is running or not.
kent

-- 
 From seeing and seeing the seeing has become so exhausted
     First line of "The Panther" - R. M. Rilke