[CS-FSLUG] OT: weird mouse behaviour

[Frank Bax]

One thing I forgot to mention in original post was that after installing 
Win98 on one of the 300PL's, I used Norton Ghost to clone the hard disk for 
each of the other systems.  Thinking that might also be contributing to the 
problem, I decided to go with Tim's advice.  I put the hard disk back into 
original case, formatted it and installed Win98 from original cdrom.  Sent 
the system back to house - and - still the same problem.  I'm thinking the 
problem must be something environmental, but I can't imagine what it might be.

Nathan suggested Linux, but that isn't going to work either.  I don't want 
to support multiple Linux distros and I've already got six workstations 
running SUSE93 within this organization (in offices, not homes).  The 
machines running SUSE93 are all newer/faster than these older 300PL 
systems; and a few of them had to have RAM upgraded to improve 
performance.  I'm sure that running SUSE93 on these 300PL systems will be a 
bad move.  Poor performance would give Linux a bad rap within the 
agency.  On a positive note, users like SUSE93 much better than RH73 and 
MDK91 which came first.  Linux has finally "come of age" in this 
organisation.  Users mostly only use OOo, Firefox (replaced Konqueror) and 
Kmail.



At 11:27 AM 4/6/06, Tim Young wrote:

>I have had similar behavior with Win98. After fiddling with it for a bit
>I simply reinstalled the computer. Reinstalling did fix it.
>
>- Tim Young
>
>Frank Bax wrote:
>
> >At the non-profit where I provide all the IT support, I've come across a
> >wierd problem.  We got a dozen used IBM 300PL systems (P3-500) and deployed
> >them with Win98SE.  Units went into group homes run by the agency to be
> >used by staff.  At one home, after only a few minutes of using OpenOffice
> >(calc) any movement of the mouse would cause erratic behaviour such as
> >opening new windows, attempting to close others, scrolling to new areas of
> >spreadsheet etc.  I asked for the machine to be returned to my office for
> >analysis.  It worked flawlessly and was sent back where it immediately
> >acted up again.  We tried several different mice and no change.  Then I
> >found out the case was sitting on top if a mini refrigerator, so that was
> >moved to other side of the room.  Still no change.  The machine came back
> >to my office and I moved the hard drive into another case.  Staff report
> >that frequency of problem seems to be slightly reduced, but still a big
> >problem.  A friend mentioned that he had seen EM interference cause
> >problems if any expansion slots were left open; and his system worked
> >flawless when all holes in case were closed.  I visited the house and there
> >were no "holes" in the case.  Only case, monitor, desk lamp and radio
> >plugged into (surge suppression) power bar.  We plugged the monitor
> >directly into the wall outlet and unplugged the lamp and radio.  Mouse is
> >still erratic.  Any ideas?
> >
> >Frank