Hi to all,

I have a packard-bell computer with a ps/2 mouse, which initally came
with WIN98 installed and everything worked ok.
After I upgraded to WIN98SE, the system started not to recognize the
mouse on the first (cold) boot.
It shows an error window saying "Windows failed to recognize a ps/2
mouse attached to your computer".
If at this point I plug-off and plug-in the mouse, then I press
ctrl+alt+del to restart, then usually the mouse gets recognized and
everything continues to work ok, until the next shutdown.
Then, on the next boot, the problem starts again.

It looks to me that it is not a driver problem, because both my mouse
( after the second boot ) and another (optical) mouse attached to the same ps/2 port works ok, without any driver change.
A USB mouse also works ok.

It was suggested to me that this could be a BIOS setting problem, but
in the SETUP I cannot find any specific setting for the mouse port.

Both the computer and the mouse are from 1998, but almost totally
unused ( alsmost brand new ).
I'm almost sure there is no problem with the hardware itself, but
somewhere some settings cause the whole problem.

I'll highly appreciate if anybody has an idea about what could be
wrong, how can I start solving this problem so that my original ps/2
mouse to work immediately after the boot.

Thanks anticipately & My best regards,
Iudith
:(

First and foremost
Never unplug and or plugin anything to a ps/2 or keyboard socket while the system is powered up and running

These old standards were not designed to be hot swapped
You are shocking the controller chip on the system board

I would suggest checking the bios for the ps/2 enabled setting first.
Also try the cold boot with only one mouse plugged in . ( in the ps/2 socket )

Also many of the older systems were/are not plug and play
So You mouse may indeed require a mouse driver be loaded at boot up.
Check the manufacturers web site for the driver installation

PB was not Known for following the industry standards

Hi Rick,

Thanks for your quick response.

I was aware of the interdiction of unplugging or plugging a device into
the ps/2 port, but was also confused by the error message received,
that said.

"Windows did not recognize a ps/2 mouse attached to your computer.
...
It is safe to attach a serial mouse now "

So, since my ONLY mouse was the ps/2 mouse, I had nothing to do but
unplug and replug it at this point.

If I tried to shutdown the computer instead, before doing this,
then the same problem would have occurred once again.

The USB mouse is only a trial, which I use ONLY since all this annoying problem started, and it worked from the first plugging in, without any problem.

As concerning the BIOS, I don't know which setting I'm supposed to
look after, which one governs the ps/2 mouse port ?
Or maybe some other setting, whose name seems totally unrelated to
the mouse issue at all ?!?

Also, when you say that "my mouse requires a mouse driver at boot up"
do you mean that I should reinstall the BIOS ?
Or it could be sufficient to reinstall the mouse drivers from the
original Packard-Bell drivers disk ?

You see, here we have no assistance center from the manufacturer,
so my only "chance" is the web.
As my computer is not a very new model, maybe it could be a problem to find anything for it.

I'll be very grateful to you if you could give me some details of what
exactly to try to unload and install.

Thanks a lot for your kind help,
Iudith

Ah Yes the old days of Packard Bell :(
I would suggest checking the Old ps/2 mouse out first to see if it is the mouse and not the system causing the problem

With the system shut down completely
Remove the Usb and the Ps/2 mouse

If you have the Green adapter for the USB to PS2 mouse that should have been included in the package with the USB mouse
Connect the usb mouse to the ps/2 port
Then boot the system as normal.

You may simply have a defective ps/2 mouse or cord


Also note
When windows reported Not finding the default ps/2 mouse it does not say to install a ps/2 mouse now.
The serial Mouse is another animal all together
It connects to the com1 or com2 ports ( DB9 /DB25 pin)
and it should not be connected while the system is running .
ONLY USB is hot swap capable

Hi Rick,

Yes, the old (but for me still actual) days !

Now the problem is like this: the computer came ONLY with the ps/2
mouse (with a green plug-in head, whose color, as I understand, is
a standard for the ps/2 mouse ports).
Also, the computer has no technical documentation attached at all
( this is the situation here ... ).

The USB is a separate mouse, which I received from a friend just for
testing it out. It happened to be also a packard-bell mouse.

None of the mouses have any adaptors between ps/2 and USB, that is,
I can only:

1. plug the ps/2 mouse into the ps/2 port ( this worked ok
with WIN98, and has problems with WIN98SE )

2. plug the USB mouse into one of the USB ports ( this works ok ).

So I have no way of connecting the USB mouse to the ps/2 port, except
if I achieve an adapter. If I understood well, this test would be
meant to check out the ps/2 port itself.

What I don't understand is what is it that does happen on the second
(warm) boot so that it makes the ps/2 mouse working ok, and which
DOES NOT happen on the first (cold) boot.

As the mouse is working on the second boot, it seems to me that both
the mouse itself + the cord + the ps/2 port are in fact working,
so my logic says that the cold boot process itself has some problem (like, maybe due to some setting that is used ONLY by this boot,
"nobody tells" the computer to recognize the mouse),
or maybe I'm wrong ?!?

When the second boot succeeds "to activate" the ps/2 mouse, then I
have both the mice working, without seeming to disturb each other at
all (except maybe for the duplicate resources consumed).

Can you point me to the specific BIOS setting that governs the ps/2 port ?

For the USB mouse, I know that there was a specific setting that
I set as enabled, but there is no such setting for the ps/2 port.

I read somewhere that there exist some clock-related issues, which
sometimes may cause the system to run ahead, without having the
necessary time to detect the attached hardware.
Maybe something like this could be the problem ?

Please forgive me for being such stubborn, but, first of all,
I'm very, really very curious to understand why did this problem
appear at all, when it didn't exist on WIN98, and, second, I understand
that the ps/2 mouse, if it works, is still the best (fastest) choice.
For example, the optical mouse seems to be very slow, by comparison.
The USB one is much better.

Thanks again lots of times for your help,
Iudith

In the Bios setup.
( You can enter the bios setup at boot up ) before windows starts to load.
The screen may/should have a message telling you what key or key combination to press to enter setup.
( Unless that PB requires a setup disk)

You should look for anything that refers to Mouse support and or PS/2 support Enabled
Not knowing the exact bios version and Not having worked on a PB for years I can not tell you exactly what screen or menu submenu will have the ps/2 options listed.


Why did it work in win98 and Not in win98se ?
For one thing . 98se replaces the autoexec. And config.sys content with it’s own settings.
This may be where the system loaded a mouse driver or caused the system to slow and allow the mouse to be recognized by the system

You can look for the old files “autoexec.old or autoexec.000 “ if you ran win98se install as an upgrade

Here is something you can do to delay the boot a little.
When the system starts and is almost finished with the system test /post
Before win98 starts to load.
Press CTRL-ALT-DEL and force the system to reboot

If all the system needs is a small delay you can for this delay later with a pause command in the autoexec.bat file

Hi Rick,

Thanks for your suggestions.

I'll try to look after the old autoexec.bat file ( used by win98 ).

I walked around the SETUP menus and I found nothing related to ps/2,
that is why I don't understand what does it mean "to make sure that
the ps/2 port is enabled", a.s.o.

Anyway, I will also try to install again the original packard-bell
mouse drivers, because now, I think it is using the WIN98SE standard
drivers. As I was told, this should not make any difference, because
the mouse is a standard device, but maybe this is not true for
my specific case.

Believe me, I have never thought packard-bell as something so very
special and different from any other trivial computers everybody is
playing with today ...

I still hope to be able to solve the problem, prior to becoming a
"hardware specialist" ( it suffices me to be a software one ...).

Thanks a lot for your help & My best regards,
Iudith

Windows failed to recognize a ps/2 mouse
Interesting message which at face value says "Windows knows there is a ps/2 mouse attached but cannot recognise it" rather than the bios not detecting it at all, etc. Still funny how it works on a warm reboot.

A couple of thoughts or things to try particularly related to drivers, ghost drivers or running in compatibility mode.

Does the mouse work with a cold boot into safe mode?
Does device manager show any conflicts?
Are there any non-optimum messages on the Performance Tab of System Properties?

If you cannot get into Device Manger without a ps/2 mouse maybe you know how to navigate around using the keyboard or you could use the usb mouse to see what's where.

In safe mode try removing all mouse references and rebooting.

In general a clean install is always better than an upgrade - so could you consider doing this with the W98se (oem or upgrade) CD?

Hi Paul,

Sorry for answering so late, only now I came to my e-mail today.

I don't know whether windows "knows" that there is a ps/2 mouse,
or it just knows it has a ps/2 mouse port and then it naturally
expects a mouse to be found there.
Anyway, since for him the ps/2 mouse is not there, windows suggests
me to attach a serial mouse, which is equally not recommended at this
point, except if I shut down the computer.
This was underlined by Rick in the previous posts in this thread and
I also know this is right.
But the problem is that I need a warm reboot for the mouse to start
working, and this cannot be achieved if I only unplug and replug the
ps/2 mouse when the computer is off.
I also tried several times to unplug and replug BEFORE starting the computer at all, but this didn't help.

Since I attached the USB mouse, even this message does not appear
anymore, I think because once a mouse is already there, it does not
look for the ps/2 mouse as well.

I didn't try safe mode yet, but I will try it.

Anyway, in normal mode there is no conflict on the Device Manager in
any of the situations (that is, when only the USB mouse is active or
when both the mice are active).

The ps/2 mouse ( after the warm boot, when it is active ), appears
as using the IRQ = 12, which I know is a standard and the device is
reported as working properly.

By removing the mouse references do you mean uninstalling the drivers
from the Device Manager ?

I didn't thought of reinstalling WIN98SE, this would be only a last
emergency solution ( In fact, I should go through WIN98 + another CD
that contains the upgrades to WIN98SE ).

What I thought of trying out is to reinstall the packard-bell proprietary mouse drivers from the packard-bell drivers CD,
maybe this really is a "special mouse" that needs its own house-made
drivers ( from the same producer ) for being recognized on cold boot.
The standard windows drivers seem not to be sufficient for the boot.

The interesting is that they are sufficient for the USB mouse, which
is also a packard-bell mouse, maybe from a newer generation.

Thanks a lot for your help & My best regards,
Iudith

Mouse drivers shouldn't be necessary, even for a Packard Bell mouse. Win98 and 98SE should both recognize a mouse and use it with no further intervention, including the PB mouse. (I've reinstalled several older win98 PB systems, mouse has always workied fine with no extra drivers installed.)

One thing you might do is check to see if it might have a flaky connection. Shut down and UNPLUG from the wall outlet, then plug and unplug the mouse several times. Make sure it's well seated before turning the machine on. Also check the mouse on a different computer.

Hi Paleo,

I also think the WIN98 mouse drivers should be sufficient, but I simply
have no other idea.
My computer came with WIN98 installed, but with a separate packard-bell
drivers disk (maybe that disk was used for installing the drivers).
All the mouse problem started exactly when we installed WIN98SE, so
maybe (?) because now it is using the windows drivers instead of its original drivers. It does not seem very realistic, but what else can
I think ?

I tried lots of times to unplug and plug the mouse before starting
the computer, nothing helps except doing this operation BETWEEN the
first (cold) boot and the second (warm) boot, which I know is in fact
forbidden.
Then, without touching at all neither the computer box nor the mouse connection, on the next cold boot the same problem appears again and
again.

My only conclusion is that the problem is a logical one (some BIOS
setting, driver usage at boot time, a.s.o.), and not a physical one
(cable, connection, a.s.o.), but no one could point me to the real
cause.

I also will try to find another computer on which to check the mouse.
I don't care to change the mouse if it is the responsible of the
problem, but first I want to make sure of this.
I have an optical mouse that seems to work ok, but I don't like it
because it is much slower.

Thanks a lot for your help & My best regards,
Iudith

Although I think the solution may already be among the many threads, I have decided to join in, because the discussion has turned into a fascinating rapport. iudith is making points exceedingly well in what is obviously a second language.

Who would of thought a PS2 mouse could create such an interesting debate.

Paul has mentioned Safe Mode and ghost drivers, and I think this is a good route to follow. Ghost drivers are a phenomenon of Windows and do cause problems from time to time.

If you go into Safe Mode iudith, and then into Device Manager you may see a string of ghost drivers under mouse. Because you don't know which is the real one, the normal practice is to delete them all. This will force windows to reload a driver at the next boot.

You will not be able to use the USB mouse in Safe Mode without a fix. So make sure if you decide to follow this path you know how to navigate around using the keyboard.

Thanks;) and good luck.

I just finished working on a system with a very similar problem

The mouse / keyboard was not recognized at boot up.
Windows would not even start
In fact the bios halted the boot process because of the No keyboard / no mouse

It turned out to be a heat related problem
The CPU heatsink was blocked with dust bunnies
and would only work half the time

The cure in this case was to remove the CPU fan ( Only the fan NOT the heatsink )
Clean out the dust/cat hair/ ??? And clean the fan blades as well
Reinstall and let it run.


However in your case I would still Recommend installing another PS/2 mouse on the ps/2 port
itself and see if the problem goes away
If you find the ghost drivers are not the problem

I still half way believe your problem is the ps/2 mouse you have is too old and requires a driver to work first time every time

try to borrow one before you buy one to test it

Hi Korky45 & Rick,

Finally somebody agrees with me that it's indeed amazing that a simple
mouse can cause such problems.
In many places dealing with devices you could find just a simple
statement, saying that the mouse is such a simple device, that it does
not need any details or discussion, it is always expected to work and
that's it... and they go on to discuss the "more serious" devices.

Believe me, I browsed lots of answers on this and other hardware forums,
I saw others having the same problem, but no solution, except trying
different mice, different drivers, a.s.o.

In the Device manager, when both the mice are working, I see the two
of them listed under "mouse", and then, for each one I can see the
driver files used.
The ps/2 mouse has 3 files listed, the USB mouse has 6 files.

When in safe mode, am I supposed to remove/uninstall the device itself,
or, instead, to go to the Driver tab and then uninstall (or replace)
the driver(s) ?

As concerning the physical aspect, I don't think there is dust inside,
I also thought this could be a problem, but the computer box was opened a few weeks ago by a technician and he said it was surprisingly clean
inside. Then it was another problem, with the sound card,
so he didn't locate the mouse problem at all. He just used an optical mouse of his, and he said it was no problem with it at all.

I wish I had a cat to deal with the mouse, maybe to eat it also, just
to solve the problem, but now I haven't ...
( I'm crazy about cats, so Rick knew what animal to choose ! )

Rick's idea that the mouse is old and therefore requires a driver
during the first boot seems to me very reasonable, the question is
how do I "work on" the boot process to convince him to recognize the
driver.
Maybe reinstalling the original driver will add some command to the
autoexec.bat to make this happen, a thing which WIN98SE did not do ?

I hope this thread will continue to be fascinating, and maybe finally
will help in solving the problem, which I'm sure will be usefull to
other desperate readers as well.

Sorry to be so extensive, I just wanted to describe the situation as
accurately as possible.

Thanks lots of times to all of you & My best regards,
Iudith

When the tech ran his Mouse on the system where did he plug it into ?
The Ps/2 port or the usb ?

If it was the ps/2 port and it worked.
You have your answer
Your mouse needs to be feed to a cat or as I prefer to do.
Feed it to a snake for lunch :p

Hi Rick,

The tech took my computer to his lab, so I was not present.

I suppose he used the ps/2 port, the USB mouse was not discussed then
at all.
If the ps/2 port were not working on his test, I suppose he'd let me
know about it.

As I said before, the ps/2 port works ok even now with the optical
mouse (at least for the short period in which I was using it, until
I decided I don't like it and I think I'll never again think of an
optical mouse).
It also works for my old mouse, but ON THE SECOND BOOT only.

I'm almost 100% sure both the port and the old mouse are ok, they
just "don't meet each other" on the first boot, it remains to
understand why ...

Anyway, before feeding any animal, I'll try however to reinstall the
original packard-bell drivers and also will try my mouse on another
computer.

In a Microsoft article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;142405

I also found a recommendation of removing some mouse-related registry
entries, in case they may be left behind from a previous installation.
Although this is not exactly my case, it may be another idea for
research.

You cannot imagine how I wish I were a hardware specialist, just to
understand all these issues deeper.
My software knowledge is not enough ...

Thanks again lots of times,
Iudith

:confused:

The mouse has a few electronics in it

Also the ATX mother board in your system uses soft shutdown
Meaning the system always has power in the M/B and probably the mouse as well..

When you unplug the mouse you force the mouse to reset.

Try this little test.
Do not touch the mouse cord
Shut down the system normally.
Then unplug the power cord to the power supply on the back of the system.
Then press the power button on the case as if you were attempting to start the system

This will drain any and all power from the capacitors on the mother board.

Now plug the power cord back into the power supply
and Boot the system as normal.

If it works then you know you have a weak circuit in the mouse electronics and need to replace it

Or repeat the about using a power strip or something

Hi Rick,

I will try to do what you indicated.

A few weeks ago I had a serious problem due to a power break.

I usually prefer to shutdown after I finish working, but due to the mouse problem on boot, it happenned that I left the computer on
for a few days.
Unfortunately, there was a power break while my computer was on, but not in use in that moment.

After this, I could not restart it at all.
That is why I had to ask for a tech's help and he discovered that the
problem was with the sound card. After replacing it, the computer
started to work.

Anyway, the mouse problem started long before this happened, but maybe
this also had some influence on it or on some other electrical
parts of the computer. I even thought that the house electric installation could have some problems.

I'll try to check this aspect also.

Lots of thanks again,
Iudith

A Power break ( Outage ) should have little or no affect on a system that is running
Other than showing the message at boot up that it was not shutdown correctly and wanting to scan the drives.

A power surge or spike can do damage
To Just one item (Or More ) and/or turn the complete system into toast ..

A Lightning hit can do the same as a spike . 1 item at a time or Multiple items

It is however more common for a lightning strike to take out a card or device connected to an out side source.
Like the Modem or network card

An externally power device not plugged into a surge protector
That is also plugged into the computer could explain the damage to say something like a sound card