Mouse / cursor issue? Help!

[TurboChrisB]

Hoping to tap the collective wisdom of the group here...

We have a Heidelberg PC Delta Rip running Windows NT 4.0 for one of my large presses at work here. In the past year or two......occasionally after shutting it down, upon restarting it...we experience mouse issues. Specifically what happens is with the first dos start up screen the mouse (cursor) works fine....even the second dos screen it works fine.....but when NT opens up.....you move the mouse an inch and the cursor disappears and reappears 6" to 8" away, the cursor moves very "skittishly" with no way to control it enough to use it at all. This happened this morning and even though we've rebooted about 10 times it hasn't corrected. Hoping someone here has some advice or has experienced it as well and can give me some insight or a clue.

Help?

Thanks in advance,

Chris

[DaveInOroValley]

Just curious have you tried the basics of trouble shooting? I.E. a different mouse or trackball? Most input device issues don't normally fall into a software realm but it is possible too as well, but I would start by trying different hardware.

[TurboChrisB]

Thanks, I should have mentioned...yes, we've tried 4 different mouse's. I'm wondering if I should go buy a new serial port card....but the fact that it works before NT comes up has me puzzeled. Maybe I should re-install NT?

[the86d]

Shiny black, wood, or red mouse pad? I assume it is not optical, as you stated serial card?

What is under your mouse? Is the surface dusty? Did you take the ball out and clean the rollers that rub against the ball?

Infected by CPU sucking malware?

[Barbarossa]

Laser mice and shiny or red surfaces are un happy friends.

If it is a ball mouse, have you tried finding drivers for the mouse?

[TurboChrisB]

Yes, it is optical, but it's not the mouse, we tried several off of other working computers in the shop to no avail.

[DaveInOroValley]

One thing you can check is to boot the system to known good software I.E. a cd and check the operation there. If it works there it's a software issue, if not hardware.

[TurboChrisB]

Clarification please? So install a cd of some software and then reboot and see if I can install it and use the mouse?

[stilly]

WOW...

Aint seen this in a LONG time...

You say you have a ps/2 mouse or a serial mouse? I wonder if the IRQ is having a conflict with another piece of software that is installed. Perhaps something got changed or adjusted and now the hardware you have MIGHT not have IQR steering / sharing so if the mouse is only able to talk every 5 seconds or what not instead of 5 miliseconds...

THAT would explain why it is FINE in DOS (cause whatever program is jacking the connection is in windows or it IS windows).

What I would do is have a look at the IRQs and see what is on the COM ports that the mouse is using/sharing. Try to move the mouse to a com port that is not being used or shared. If need be create some new ports. You should be able to make coms as you need them but you should not need to make them past 4. Sometimes I see a item on a COM 5 or 7 though... (older USB GPS receivers and stuff)

IF possible I would add in a USB controller card and see if you can upgrade to a usb mouse. OR if I was using a serial mouse then I would migrate to a PS/2 mouse since it should be available.

Also, get into your BIOS and see if you are setup to have the resources controlled by AUTO or if you can define what gets what resources.

I am thinking that when NT comes online it starts dishing out rights to the resources (interrupts and stuff) on a first come first serve basis. Maybe if things were programmed correctly from the START there would be none of this because everything would always be the same, not reassigned when it boots into NT... Maybe an update or something pushed the mouse back behind another piece of hardware so that it now has to share with the speakers or something. That is pissing off the mouse because it needs its OWN com port (if this is a serial mouse anyways). (hehe, if this is true then when you move your mouse your speakers will sound like crap also...)

Buying a new serial card may not solve the problem unless the serial card is going bad. I can see that too but if it were going bad I would think that it would also jack things up in DOS as well.

It would be nice if I could see the setup in person instead of trying to lob solutions over the net. I could be off by a mile but this fits in my book.