Mouse & KB Locks Up

[jayflash]

My Dell 8100 (ca. 2001) came with the Me OS just when XP was introduced and is capable of running XP. I've been led to believe installing the XP OS would resolve various instability issues. Because the mouse & keyboard locks up and the cursor jumps around shall I also install an updated driver and if so where on the net is it suggested I procure the driver? Another problem is some files become unable to open and the registry gets cluttered with invalid fragments.

When my wife & I become re-employed a new (good) PC or Mac will be a necessity to advance her art/graphics career but, for now, is there any reason I might NOT want to spend the $$ for XP?

Thank you very much for any help. I've considered joining a PC forum but, as you can tell, I'd be way out of my league.

 

[raggie33]

are ya mouse and keyboard on usb? are there a lot of stuff on usb as well? do ya have the updated mobo drivers installed?

 

[jayflash]

Hello, raggie, it's nice to have you back. Nuttin on the USBs; the mouse & KB have PS2 connectors.

I didn't have this problem until months after I read on the CPF that someone else had a similar issue. I never upgraded the mobo drivers, what all does that require and control?

 

[raggie33]

i always like to have the newest mobo drivers installed .they controll things that are on mobo. they control how the item interacts with the os. a long time ago i seem to recall haveing a issue like ya did with some via drivers ona mobo with a via chipset. also try to defrag hardrive

 

[jayflash]

Guess I'll do the driver update after XP is installed. I do frequent defrag & maintenance so unless I'm missing something (very possible) this shouldn't be my problem.

Thanks raggie.

 

[JohnK]

I've got XP Home Edition.

My cursor jumps aroud also. Not too often, but ???

 

[eluminator]

I've got XP Home Edition.

My cursor jumps aroud also. Not too often, but ???

Try another mouse. I bought a wireless optical several years ago that was lousy. It had many faults but the cursor jumping was mainly caused by using it on a fairly shiny surface like a desktop. I then discovered $14 wired optical mice and I've lived happily ever after. They are now down to $12.

 

[geepondy]

Perhaps installing XP alone will fix the problem. I certainly prefer XP over ME and I even thought windows 98 second edition was better then ME. Anyhow I notice on older systems with a lot going on, the mouse will jump some. I'm sure it's a time sharing issue having to do with the allocation of limited resources.

 

[eluminator]

I didn't have this problem until months after I read on the CPF that someone else had a similar issue.

If you were happy with ME for a few years, then something deteriorated and you should be able to fix it without buying XP. If ME was never satisfactory, then XP ought to be more solid.

Maybe you should re-install ME. Software doesn't wear out like hardware, but it can become corrupted.

As far as the unreadable files are concerned, XP might do a better job, especially if you use NTFS. Have you run the file system check program? I'm not sure what it's called. Scandisk or checkdisk or something like that. You might want to run a hard drive diagnostic program also.

When your keyboard and mouse lock up, that sounds like the OS has locked up or maybe the computer is still running but the video locked up. A lot of things could do that. Overheating, bad power supply, bad memory, bad video, etc. You might want to run a memory diagnostic program like memtest86. If the memory diagnostic won't run for a few hours then you have some kind of hardware problem and re-installing any OS won't help.

 

[ABTOMAT]

ME is trash, basically. It's something MS threw together at the last minute because they were running behind schedule for the new year.

Get XP or Win2000. Don't install over ME--back up your hard drive and erase the whole thing.

Of course if it's a hardware issue you have other problems, but eleminating ME is certainly a plus.

 

[jayflash]

Since I've got two HDs I'll move everything to one, reformat and install XP on the larger one. Might Norton System Works that includes Ghost be a good investment to keep the old buggy movin' along? The (unregistered) registry scanners I downloaded keep finding fragments and other problems that I understand SysWorks can repair.

 

[TigerhawkT3]

Windows "Me" isn't very good. It's number four in PCWorld's "25 Worst Tech Products of All Time."

I really like XP.

I would agree with the full reformat. If possible, save a mirror or ghost of your current hard drive so that you can go back if the new install is somehow worse.

 

[jayflash]

Thanks, everyone, for your help.

 

[Dr Jekell]

I will most probably be flamed for this but I don't see why people are bashing ME I have a laptop that has been running ME for the last 5 years under daily use and the only problems I have had with it is a screen problem and software crashes caused by software I installed.

The best way to get ME running the best is to get rid of all of the pre installed junk (I had software for WLAN and my laptop is not equiped with a WLAN card) and get it back to just the basic OS then look through the machine and get rid of all of the text and Doc files named "read me", "Licence", "instructions" as these just clog up the system (I got rid of 3 GB of unwanted software and/or files that wern't needed.

As for the mouse jumping around have a look at the sensor on the optical mouse could have a hair or similar on it. As for inbuilt mice the sensor might not be as sensitive as todays so if it is really anoing you you could try either looking for the settings for the device and see if you can change it (I know on mine I can calibrate it to my movments) or try an external mouse.

But back to the original problem it sounds like you have one three posible problems, one - a piece of software is corupting your system, two - you are running too many programs in the background/in the task bar, or three - you have one of those pesky gremlins in you system and has caused your OS to become corupted (Not a pretty sight) and requires a full HD wipe and reinstall (if you have a full install CD it is even better)

If you have a full install CD and not a recovery CD ( :thumbsdow ) then you can intall only the components that you want by using the custom install option (Which saves space and alows the OS to run faster)

If you have any other Questions please PM me

 

[Draco_Americanus]

This system somtimes gives me a keyboard error and sometimes the mouse locks up, did it realy bad today, I had to remove the cpu, use deoxit on it, the dimm cards and the video card, This computer was in a house fire and is slowly becoming more unstable, it took 4 washings with foaming cleaner and alcohol just to get it to pass post after the fire, but no job, no extra cash, I was just given a dell a few days ago so that hopefully be my main system once i get my games transfered, sadly it will still have parts from this system in it (video card and ram)

I also was one of the few that had very little problems with windows ME, I ran it for years but needed to ungrade when i started encoding video stuff.

one must also regulary clean the dust from the main system as well, that can cause instability due to poor cooling as everything is coated in dust, connectors work better when clean too for some reason

 

[jayflash]

When I increased my Rambus from 128 to 384 the available system resources only increased from about 59% to 65%. I have about 20 startup items running and 11 in the taskbar. Much of it is for my camera & printer. Hitting Cont/Alt/Delete takes several tries before the tasks window shows up. I'm not PC savvy or I'd already know how & what to disable or alter so it's not running unless needed.

 

[eluminator]

I guess nobody here is familiar with ME. Maybe you could try an ME forum. There is one at annoyances.org.

Yes, you would be better off running XP, but you mentioned you plan on buying a new computer. That would probably come with XP or Vista installed so whether it would be a good idea to buy XP for your current machine depends on how long you will be using it.

I can only offer advice on your current situation based on my experience with XP and previous versions of NT.

There are two things that will slow up your machine. A screwed up or malevolent process that is consuming a lot of CPU cycles, or is using up your memory.

XP's task manager will show how busy the CPU is. When you are doing nothing, the CPU busy should be in the range of 0 to 10 percent with occasional swings higher. XP's task manager will show the amount of CPU time being used by each process, so it is easy to see which one is causing problems. As long as the total CPU utilization is less than around 50%, it should respond quickly to keyboard or mouse input.

If you have a program hogging the CPU or memory it could be malware or just a poorly written program. I found that if I left I.E. running for a few days it would use all the CPU it could get for no apparent reason. I then found it wasn't I.E. itself but rather it was an add-on. I.E. 7 puts a shortcut in Accessories > System Tools, that will run it without add-ons.

Figuring out memory utilization is more puzzling to me but I can usually figure it out from Task Manager, or sometimes I use SysInternal's Process Explorer. I rarely have problem with running out of memory, but I have more memory than you do.

If ME's Task Manager is lacking what you need to monitor your computer, you might want to try things like Process Explorer from SysInternals. It apparently can run on ME. The SysInternals stuff is high quality. I see now that Microsoft bought the company in July 2006.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx


I have a hell of a lot of processes running, but my CPU utilization is low so my machine works well. A lot of these processes are McAfee. If I click on "CPU" in taskManager, it will sort the processes by CPU utilization. The System Idle Process is unique. It runs when the CPU has nothing to do, so having it use 98% of the CPU is good.

 

[jayflash]

Thanks for the illumination. eluminator! I appreciate the help.

 

[Raybo]

When I increased my Rambus from 128 to 384 the available system resources only increased from about 59% to 65%. I have about 20 startup items running and 11 in the taskbar. Much of it is for my camera & printer. Hitting Cont/Alt/Delete takes several tries before the tasks window shows up. I'm not PC savvy or I'd already know how & what to disable or alter so it's not running unless needed.

Get that crap out of your system tray, it's using a lot of your system resourses.

Open each program in your tray and disable it on startup (it's eating up your memory), this is why you only gained 6% after you installed the extra ram.

Ray

 

[carbine15]

best os out there still is windows 2000 unless you like linux.