Okay Polk forum computer gurus...
jcaut
Posts: 1,849
I've got three questions that I hope someone on here who's brighter than me can answer. Warning: this is long so if you don't want to read it all, just stop now.. And I apologize. I'm running WinXP home, btw:
#1.) I finally wore out my old Dell scroll mouse that I've been using for about five years. I went to Wal-Mart last night and picked up a Logitech optical mouse. It's made with a USB plug, but comes with a USB>PS/2 adapter, which-- if I'm reading the (very poor) instructions right-- I'm supposed to use with my PC. (In other words, not just plug the thing into the USB port??)
Okay. So went to device manager, removed my old mouse (which showed up as "Microsoft PS/2 compatible mouse", shut down, plugged in new mouse and rebooted. Everything looks the same. Device manager still shows "Microsoft" mouse. New mouse works, BUT I'm getting some strange behavior out of it. Namely, the cursor seems to, every now and then, want to take a strange jump to a different area of the screen. "Possibly it needs the proper driver", I think, so I proceed to use the "Update driver" function and make it search for the driver on the CD that came with the mouse (I don't really want to have to install any "Mouseware" software if I don't have to because I'm anal, but that's another story and I'll get to that in a minute). Driver update found a "better" driver on the CD and installed it. Now shows up as a "Logitech compatible scroll mouse", in device manager. Cursor still jumps around and now I've lost the scroll wheel function..
Question: What do I have to do to get this working properly? Plug into USB port? Install "Mouseware"?? I didn't anticipate frustration with this swap.
#2.) My computer is one I built a little over a year ago. My MB is an Intel D865PERL, one that, to Intel at least is a "performance/enthusiast" board. Anyway, there's a setting in the BIOS configuation labeled, "Host Spread Spectrum". From what I can tell, this varies the core clock frequencies a small amount to help reduce EMI. Being not particularly worried about EMI, I changed this setting from the default "DOWN" setting to "CENTER". I used the computer for about a week with no problems, then one day when I turned it on, it didn't want to boot and gave me a "CMOS checksum bad" error. It's done it two more times in about two weeks. I haven't changed that setting back yet. Therein lies my question: Could that setting cause enough EMI to corrupt the BIOS memory? This is a 2.8C P4, with the 800Mhz FSB. It's no problem to change it back, I was just curious if anyone had ever heard of such a problem.
#3) It irritates me to have excess junk running in the background. I turn off all the services that I don't have to have running. But sometimes I find that I need something that I've shut down (Say I want to use Windows Update, and it wants Background Intelligent Transfer running). Is there an easy way to save different service configurations without having to go in and manually change them? So that I could switch easily between the Windows defaults and my minimalist configuration. I can't do it with user profiles, since services are global.. Any ideas?
And before I sign off: Anyone who knows a lot about about ATI AIW cards and video capture, and ATI's ridiculous "fix one thing, break another" driver situation... I need to talk to you.
Jason
#1.) I finally wore out my old Dell scroll mouse that I've been using for about five years. I went to Wal-Mart last night and picked up a Logitech optical mouse. It's made with a USB plug, but comes with a USB>PS/2 adapter, which-- if I'm reading the (very poor) instructions right-- I'm supposed to use with my PC. (In other words, not just plug the thing into the USB port??)
Okay. So went to device manager, removed my old mouse (which showed up as "Microsoft PS/2 compatible mouse", shut down, plugged in new mouse and rebooted. Everything looks the same. Device manager still shows "Microsoft" mouse. New mouse works, BUT I'm getting some strange behavior out of it. Namely, the cursor seems to, every now and then, want to take a strange jump to a different area of the screen. "Possibly it needs the proper driver", I think, so I proceed to use the "Update driver" function and make it search for the driver on the CD that came with the mouse (I don't really want to have to install any "Mouseware" software if I don't have to because I'm anal, but that's another story and I'll get to that in a minute). Driver update found a "better" driver on the CD and installed it. Now shows up as a "Logitech compatible scroll mouse", in device manager. Cursor still jumps around and now I've lost the scroll wheel function..
Question: What do I have to do to get this working properly? Plug into USB port? Install "Mouseware"?? I didn't anticipate frustration with this swap.
#2.) My computer is one I built a little over a year ago. My MB is an Intel D865PERL, one that, to Intel at least is a "performance/enthusiast" board. Anyway, there's a setting in the BIOS configuation labeled, "Host Spread Spectrum". From what I can tell, this varies the core clock frequencies a small amount to help reduce EMI. Being not particularly worried about EMI, I changed this setting from the default "DOWN" setting to "CENTER". I used the computer for about a week with no problems, then one day when I turned it on, it didn't want to boot and gave me a "CMOS checksum bad" error. It's done it two more times in about two weeks. I haven't changed that setting back yet. Therein lies my question: Could that setting cause enough EMI to corrupt the BIOS memory? This is a 2.8C P4, with the 800Mhz FSB. It's no problem to change it back, I was just curious if anyone had ever heard of such a problem.
#3) It irritates me to have excess junk running in the background. I turn off all the services that I don't have to have running. But sometimes I find that I need something that I've shut down (Say I want to use Windows Update, and it wants Background Intelligent Transfer running). Is there an easy way to save different service configurations without having to go in and manually change them? So that I could switch easily between the Windows defaults and my minimalist configuration. I can't do it with user profiles, since services are global.. Any ideas?
And before I sign off: Anyone who knows a lot about about ATI AIW cards and video capture, and ATI's ridiculous "fix one thing, break another" driver situation... I need to talk to you.
Jason
Post edited by RyanC_Masimo on
Comments
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1.) Optical mouse need optical mouse pads if not this could be your problem, also check your mouse settings for sensitivity if set to high this could be a problem also.
2.) could be a battery problem or a POS motherboard.
3.) You could reformat drive and rebuilt XP clean, a major pain so know what you're doing first.
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With regard to #1, you don't have to do anything to install the drivers for the mouse. Don't delete or remove anything from device manager (the USB mouse will automatically show up in DM). The reason that the adapter comes with the mouse is that (believe it or not) some people have computers that don't have USB ports, so the adapter allows them to use the mouse with their PC. If you have USB ports, then just plug it in directly and it's a plug and play device.
The jumpoing around could be a few different problems. Optical mice don't ultimately need to be on any sort of mousepad (you could use your leg if you wanted), but you do have to avoid certain types of surfaces. If you're on a desk with a glass top, use a mouse pad. If you're on a desk that has any sort of acrylic, use a mousepad. You might want to check to see if your mouse behaves any differently with vs. without the mousepad, but with optical mice, typically it has to do with the surface that the mouse is on.comment comment comment comment. bitchy.
