No Mouse Cursor Problem / Any Ideas ?

Hi there

Maybe someone can give me some pointers here with a problem PC belonging to
a friend who does not have to much money to fix it.

PC spec

ECS Motherboard VIA chipset
600 Duron
64meg PC133 RAM
30Gig Maxtor HDD
DVD and 24x CDRW
Window Me (yes I know, but thats what he is used to!)

Initial symptoms were that it would only boot into safe mode, but his kids
have loaded loads of cr@p onto it from cover discs / the internet etc, so I
said I would take a look at it and if required reload the OS and do a cleam
install.

So firstly I tried a repair of Me and it booted into nomal mode but with no
mouse (PS2). Tried another mouse and still nothing, Got it working with a
USB mouse but it was still unstable and really flaky. So did a clean install
of Me loaded all the drivers etc and it seems to behave. Started loading
other applications and it started to lock up and required several reboots.
Now it did only have 64MB RAM so I suggested that 128MB would be better so
got a 128MB stick from a computer fair and fitted it. All was fine until I
tried putting the old 64MB stick in as well and it would not recognise the
64MB stick. So I thought that was it, a suspect SDRam stick. So got it all
uyp together again and took it back to him yesterday. Got the internet
working again and loaded his scanner drivers and printer drivers and all was
well.

Got a call a couple of hours later. The mouse does not work. Sounds
familiar. Asked him to reboot it a few times and one boot the said it made a
strange noise and ask for a system disk. Ah, hard disk I thought, but the
HDD checked out fine with ScanDisk, it defraged OK and Maxtors utilities
could not find anything wrong with it. Further more after telling how to
re-enable SMART in the BIOS, there were no SMART warning on further boots.

So is it the HDD or the MoBo or something else. He cannot afford to just
replace everything. My thoughts are

HDD because of the system disk request, but it checks out OK and the main /
common symptom is that the mouse is not working / no cursor visible.

or

Motherboard problem with PS2 port / HDD controller / system chipset.

What would be your recommendation of what to try next.

The bits I can get from Dabs / ebuyer in the UK are ASRock / ECS Mobo with
Socket A
and SDram slot = £29 / $45
30Gig Maxtor £45 / $75

Any ideas / suggestions greatfully received

Thanks for reading

Duncan

"DeeBee" wrote in message
...
Hi there

Maybe someone can give me some pointers here with a problem PC belonging
to
a friend who does not have to much money to fix it.

PC spec

ECS Motherboard VIA chipset
600 Duron
64meg PC133 RAM
30Gig Maxtor HDD
DVD and 24x CDRW
Window Me (yes I know, but thats what he is used to!)

Initial symptoms were that it would only boot into safe mode, but his kids
have loaded loads of cr@p onto it from cover discs / the internet etc, so
I
said I would take a look at it and if required reload the OS and do a
cleam
install.

So firstly I tried a repair of Me and it booted into nomal mode but with
no
mouse (PS2). Tried another mouse and still nothing, Got it working with a
USB mouse but it was still unstable and really flaky. So did a clean
install
of Me loaded all the drivers etc and it seems to behave. Started loading
other applications and it started to lock up and required several reboots.
Now it did only have 64MB RAM so I suggested that 128MB would be better so
got a 128MB stick from a computer fair and fitted it. All was fine until I
tried putting the old 64MB stick in as well and it would not recognise the
64MB stick. So I thought that was it, a suspect SDRam stick. So got it all
uyp together again and took it back to him yesterday. Got the internet
working again and loaded his scanner drivers and printer drivers and all
was
well.

Got a call a couple of hours later. The mouse does not work. Sounds
familiar. Asked him to reboot it a few times and one boot the said it made
a
strange noise and ask for a system disk. Ah, hard disk I thought, but the
HDD checked out fine with ScanDisk, it defraged OK and Maxtors utilities
could not find anything wrong with it. Further more after telling how to
re-enable SMART in the BIOS, there were no SMART warning on further boots.

So is it the HDD or the MoBo or something else. He cannot afford to just
replace everything. My thoughts are

HDD because of the system disk request, but it checks out OK and the main
/
common symptom is that the mouse is not working / no cursor visible.

or

Motherboard problem with PS2 port / HDD controller / system chipset.

What would be your recommendation of what to try next.

The bits I can get from Dabs / ebuyer in the UK are ASRock / ECS Mobo with
Socket A
and SDram slot = £29 / $45
30Gig Maxtor £45 / $75

Any ideas / suggestions greatfully received

Thanks for reading

Duncan




you mentioned that the fresh install was working ok...
but the system started having problems after you started loading
applications...

i'd start uninstalling apps and see if maybe there is a bad one causing the
problem...
otherwise to another clean install and do not load any apps
then if the sytem works ok for a few days...
load only one app at a time
and see if you can pinpoint where the prob is comming from...
just a suggestion

ECS ......sigh...... try resetting the cmos short the jumper and then reboot and check the cmos/bios setup routine for PS/2 port
enabled auto detect for the harddrive PNP os installed to NO
Reset configuration data to YES reboot

"DeeBee" wrote in message ...
Hi there

Maybe someone can give me some pointers here with a problem PC belonging to
a friend who does not have to much money to fix it.

PC spec

ECS Motherboard VIA chipset
600 Duron
64meg PC133 RAM
30Gig Maxtor HDD
DVD and 24x CDRW
Window Me (yes I know, but thats what he is used to!)

Initial symptoms were that it would only boot into safe mode, but his kids
have loaded loads of cr@p onto it from cover discs / the internet etc, so I
said I would take a look at it and if required reload the OS and do a cleam
install.

So firstly I tried a repair of Me and it booted into nomal mode but with no
mouse (PS2). Tried another mouse and still nothing, Got it working with a
USB mouse but it was still unstable and really flaky. So did a clean install
of Me loaded all the drivers etc and it seems to behave. Started loading
other applications and it started to lock up and required several reboots.
Now it did only have 64MB RAM so I suggested that 128MB would be better so
got a 128MB stick from a computer fair and fitted it. All was fine until I
tried putting the old 64MB stick in as well and it would not recognise the
64MB stick. So I thought that was it, a suspect SDRam stick. So got it all
uyp together again and took it back to him yesterday. Got the internet
working again and loaded his scanner drivers and printer drivers and all was
well.

Got a call a couple of hours later. The mouse does not work. Sounds
familiar. Asked him to reboot it a few times and one boot the said it made a
strange noise and ask for a system disk. Ah, hard disk I thought, but the
HDD checked out fine with ScanDisk, it defraged OK and Maxtors utilities
could not find anything wrong with it. Further more after telling how to
re-enable SMART in the BIOS, there were no SMART warning on further boots.

So is it the HDD or the MoBo or something else. He cannot afford to just
replace everything. My thoughts are

HDD because of the system disk request, but it checks out OK and the main /
common symptom is that the mouse is not working / no cursor visible.

or

Motherboard problem with PS2 port / HDD controller / system chipset.

What would be your recommendation of what to try next.

The bits I can get from Dabs / ebuyer in the UK are ASRock / ECS Mobo with
Socket A
and SDram slot = £29 / $45
30Gig Maxtor £45 / $75

Any ideas / suggestions greatfully received

Thanks for reading

Duncan