OS2 World Community Forum

OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Hardware => Topic started by: Mentore on December 04, 2017, 10:03:24 am

Title: Mouse weirdness
Post by: Mentore on December 04, 2017, 10:03:24 am
Hello all, long time no see :-) I've been lurking a lot but without having too much to add. Recently, though, I came across a strange problem.

I've a rather old machine built by myself. Nothing too fancy, it's just an old Intel dual core with 2 GiB RAM, working only with eCS 2.1 GA. When I say "rather old" I mean "It has a PS/2 keyboard port and mouse port".

I used to work on it with an USB mouse connected to the PS/2 port via an adaptor and it worked fairly well (it's still smoother than my last laptop with an i5 CPU and Windows 10, mind you).

In the last few days, though, strange things have happened:

1 - my old mouse stopped working its left button, so I tried to use an USB mouse. It worked the first time and then no more.

2 - I tried another old PS/2 mouse (but this could be not working) and no success.

3 - I bought a new (wired, not wireless) USB mouse and tried to connect it to all the USB ports, other than the PS/2 port with its adaptor, and nothing - no mouse movements.

4 - everytime I connect the mouse to the USB port, eCS beeps (it's the same beep that occurs when I connect an USB pendrive or other MSD).

5 - Amouse is installed and Amouse USB driver too. Amouse control panel seems to detect the mouse, but the pointer does not move and pushing any of the mouse buttons doesn't do anything.

Now I want to take some time to try and see if the eCS installer actually sees the mouse. The same I'll do with some other OS installer (say, some linux).

Maybe this is the right time to think about migrating to ArcaOS...

Some ideas, anyone?
Mentore
Title: Re: Mouse weirdness
Post by: Lars on December 04, 2017, 01:03:06 pm
As to USB mouse: have you tried an updated USB driver stack ? I consider the eCS 2.1 supplied USB drivers to be hopelessly outdated. Either use the driver stack from AN or try mine (on Hobbes).

For PS/2 mouse and keyboard: the usual advice applies, always plug in PS/2 mouse or keyboard before you power on the PC. Everything else can damage the electronics (I cannot remember if it would work at all if connected to an already powered system).

I remember that USBD.SYS will issue a beep on an overcurrent situation (if a device draws too much current).
Bad, bad bad.
On the other hand: if you have a UHCI controller (which I strongly assume you do) then the problem is that the "overcurrent bit" was not properly defined between the Intel UHCI and the VIA UHCI controller. VIA has defined it logically negated to Intel. But then I remember (in the USBUHCD.SYS driver) I am flipping the bit on VIA to match that on Intel (same holds true for the AN stack) ...

I assume you can also neither see nor use your USB pendrive, correct ?

Finally: AMouse (at least older versions) comes with their own USBMOUSE.SYS driver. Don't use it. Make sure you use the one in the AN stack (or my stack). These will be located in the \OS2\BOOT directory.
Title: Re: Mouse weirdness
Post by: Pete on December 04, 2017, 08:52:08 pm
Hi

Are all usb drivers that are required installed?

You can use usbcfg to view and change usb settings - usbcfg is available as zip or wpi package http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/h-search.php?key=usbcfg082&pushbutton=Search


Regards

Pete
Title: Re: Mouse weirdness
Post by: Mentore on December 05, 2017, 09:55:32 am
As to USB mouse: have you tried an updated USB driver stack ? I consider the eCS 2.1 supplied USB drivers to be hopelessly outdated. Either use the driver stack from AN or try mine (on Hobbes).

For PS/2 mouse and keyboard: the usual advice applies, always plug in PS/2 mouse or keyboard before you power on the PC. Everything else can damage the electronics (I cannot remember if it would work at all if connected to an already powered system).

Well this worries me a little (or a lot). I don't use the eCS supplied stack but one of your latest one, which by the way I found to be really useful. (thanks for that.)

I remember that USBD.SYS will issue a beep on an overcurrent situation (if a device draws too much current).
Bad, bad bad.
On the other hand: if you have a UHCI controller (which I strongly assume you do) then the problem is that the "overcurrent bit" was not properly defined between the Intel UHCI and the VIA UHCI controller. VIA has defined it logically negated to Intel. But then I remember (in the USBUHCD.SYS driver) I am flipping the bit on VIA to match that on Intel (same holds true for the AN stack) ...

IIRC (I built that beast loooooong ago) it has indeed an UHCI controller, and the beep is issued everytime I connect something to the USB ports. I was indeed assuming this was a "reassuring" signal, not a warning. Stupid me.

I assume you can also neither see nor use your USB pendrive, correct ?

This is a good "no": I indeed can see almost any of my USB gadgets, including a multicard reader. Actually I should try that again, but I surely remember I copied some files from a 16 GB pendrive to my machine using Larsen Commander and selecting the files via keyboard. No problems at all IIRC.

Finally: AMouse (at least older versions) comes with their own USBMOUSE.SYS driver. Don't use it. Make sure you use the one in the AN stack (or my stack). These will be located in the \OS2\BOOT directory.

This is something I shall try.
What I really can't possibly understand is why the mouse stopped working without having changed anything.
The next things I'll do will be surely taken from your list: updating USB stack and using your stack instead of USBMOUSE from AMouse. And keep fingers crossed.

Thanks a lot in the meantime.

Mentore
Title: Re: Mouse weirdness
Post by: Mentore on December 05, 2017, 10:00:31 am
Hi

Are all usb drivers that are required installed?

You can use usbcfg to view and change usb settings - usbcfg is available as zip or wpi package http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/h-search.php?key=usbcfg082&pushbutton=Search


Regards

Pete

Hi Pete,

no problems in USB stack - everything is installed fine. As I just wrote to Lars, I'll surely try and update the drivers and modify something in CONFIG.SYS to use the right stack.
Then I'll go to eBay and buy new PS/2 keyboard and mouse, since there are still many  8)

Mentore
Title: Re: Mouse weirdness
Post by: Lars on December 05, 2017, 11:17:37 am
ok, thanks.

I am slowly progressing in preparing version 10.220 of the USB stack. There are functional updates to USBAUDIO.SYS (from Wim Brul: adding automatic sampling conversion support for 24-bit,48 kHz USB target devices and fixes to computed/displayed play time in particular if multiple streams are started in parallel), USBMSD.ADD (minor fixes in freeing "virtual floppy" emulation structures if the attached device does not need emulation), USB(U|O|E)HCI.SYS (revert back to 10.218 as Wim Brul had problems with the changes done in 10.219).
That said, if you have 10.219 in use you might want to revert back to 10.218 for the time being in order to rule out any issues in USB(U|O|E)HCI.SYS (if you have them).
Title: Re: Mouse weirdness
Post by: ivan on December 05, 2017, 11:26:12 am
Hi Mentore,

Did you remove the USB/PS/2 adapter when you tried the usb mouse in other usb ports?  I ask because I have encountered one that was bad and caused problems with the mouse and keyboard very similar to what you are describing.

There is also the possibility if mechanical problems with the PS/2 port on the motherboard because those adapters put additional mechanical stress on the port and can cause failure of the soldered joints.
Title: Re: Mouse weirdness
Post by: Lars on December 05, 2017, 12:23:57 pm
Mentore,

can you post your PCI info for the machine in question ?
Just run PCI.EXE and dump the output to a text file.
I am only interested in any block that has "UHCI", "OHCI" or "EHCI" in it ...

There is a possibility that you have some very old USB hardware that potentially has the wrong PCI id. In that case, there is a chance that the UHCI driver might misinterpret the "overcurrent" bit setting (as I said, there is a disagreement between VIA and Intel) and bug you with reporting overcurrent where in fact there is no problem.
Title: Re: Mouse weirdness
Post by: Joop on December 05, 2017, 11:45:22 pm
There is an other possibility. The battery on your motherboard is empty/down. In this case your bios is set to standard. If you have multiple USB ports on the motherboard you probably also have the feature that you can setup the number of ports you want to use. If you did choose less ports then available on the motherboard you could have a problem. With a battery down your installation is byebye and the setup goes to standard bios settings, ie all ports. I had same issue. After setting up the right number of ports all functioned again. So check your battery!