Seeing as I have this mouse trouble, I thought it rather fitting that
today I got called out to a person's place to service their computer, the
complaint being that the mouse would 'sometimes stop working'. Dismiss
from your minds that this is to do with linux..the machine was actually
running '95...though the problem in the end, could've affected any OS this
mouse was attached to..given the right conditions.
After cursory questioning of the client (read_ interrogation :), I found
out this problem had apparently started immediately after they purchased a
shiny new computer desk their kit was sitting on, so I immediately thought
about cabling.....even though I was assured by the owner such had been
rechecked several thousand times to no end. He was right...nothing seemed
out of place, but the mouse did indeed stop working while one was using
it, the buttons remained active but the movement was totally non existant
or erratic. Turn it upside, check the rollers...they work fine. Open it
up, look inside (at what, I dunno...maybe I suspected a cockroach or
something)....pffft! Nothing. Put it back together, plug it into his son's
machine, and it works like a dream. Plug the son's mouse into dad's
machine..works fine too. ??? Was he SURE it worked beforehand? Yes.
It took another free coffee and further cross examination to find the
truth *actually* was that the snazzy HALOGEN DESKLAMP had also come with
the desk purchase...goodgrief....I turned off the lamp and the mouse
returned to normal. (hahaha) It was the *plastic* of the mouse itself! It
was much less dense on the top lid than it needed to be, to shield the
optics of the light from the desklamp, hence saturating the inputs. The
intermittent and erratic behaviour, was actually being caused by the way
one held and manipulated the thing, depending on where (or how much)
shadow your hand would cause. A couple of strips with black pvc tape had
it fixed, but that's not why I thought this would make an interesting
posting.
As I work in this field, this is becoming more and more an apparent
legacy of cheapest possible material quotients being used to produce the
gear we use today. This is an outer-limits [great scifi] case, but I
seriously doubt it's isolated. A great deal of contention seems to exist
here regarding the possible 'vulnerability' or 'intolerance' linux has
towards the hardware it supposedly supports....and a great deal of
'mystique' regarding why it'll work on one brand-x motherboard, but not on
another of the same type and model, and yes, even brand.
I think you have to look at this from two, interactive viewpoints. On
one side, we have linux...an OS likely to do and make do things to the
hardware it commands, somewhat UNLIKE the OS it was more or less designed
to work on would do. I figure this could even go all the way down to a
simple matter of 'crosstalk' with signal paths with/within a particular
motherboard design, or perhaps even a case exists for 'noisy' motherboards
(which harkens me back to my amiga hacking days) which linux may spit at
whilst something else runs happily with it. I look and marvel at these
newer motherboard designs, noting on some the cute notion of using the pcb
tracking as onboard inductive elements...then I wonder how many of these
elements lay hidden *in* the motherboard, and then think about things
like...does it matter how far from the case these things sit? Is there any
chance spurious RF energy could upset these things? (etc etc)
The other angle here is the hardware itself of course. I think we all
stood up and said we believed that production runs of silicon chips..from
transistors to cpus...were never a thing done with absolute consistancy,
resulting in the output components needing checking & grading dependant of
how well the chip was cut in the manufacturing stage. Cite things like the
Motorola MC68EC030, which is just a production 68030 with disfunctional or
non operative MMU unit...caused by this syndrome I believe. If this is so,
then surely we must concede that *none* of us can really be sure just what
grade or accuracy of devices we have received on our boards. This could go
right down to the chipset/s used and the periphral chips there associated
...and if I was to begin to speculate *that* point, I may start seriously
considering the case that ALL of us that share this mouse-lockup problem
may have nothing more in common than flaky chips near our UARTS or
something.
I just want people to be aware of these things, and *not* be offended
when something points to your hardware..irrespective of how much you paid
for it or what it proports to be. At least our choice of cards is a lot
simpler...you're not going to buy something known NOT to be supported by
linux (unless you're intrepid and wanna make your own driver).
What of motherboards though? Let's imagine I've come this far, punched
out a few trees, and deduced all this nonsense...and decide to get SERIOUS
with linux, that meaning rebuilding the box from the ground up. Is there a
list of known currently available motherboard/cpu combinations that are
known to work smicky-dicky with linux? (if not, I well understand why ;^)
If anyone wants to shoot me testimonials in this regard, please flood
**MY** email address and *NOT* the list :) It's bad enough I feel bad
enough for having typed such a long post. apols.
Db
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