Freaky mouse problems and USB mouse wheel scrolling

shrike42 · n00b Joined: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 7

My mouse works well enough except under one condition: when I hold a key on the keyboard and move the mouse it will suddenly go into random-freak-out mode and will just move and click randomly all over the screen. It does the for a while and then if I key-mash enough it will fix itself. Most of the time this isn't a real problem, however when trying to play games, using the mouse at the same time as the keyboard is usually quite important. Does anyone know of something that could cause this?

This mostly occurs in X (I use fluxbox if it matters), however I suspect that it is not an X problem (from watching the output of 'cat /dev/mouse' when X is not running, there seems to be a noticable difference under the conditions when it would normally go into freak out mode).

I am running gentoo-sources 2.6.12-r4, but I was having the problem at least as far back as 2.6.11, probably earlier.

I have tried shutgun debugging it by randomly switching on and off mouse related options in the kernel and BIOS, to no avail (unsuprisingly).

Also on a possibly related note: how does one get mouse wheel scrolling to work on a USB mouse in X? I tried: Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5" in my xorg.conf. When I plug my mouse in as USB this does not work, but it works fine when I use a USB to ps/2 converter (which wouldn't be a problem, but I cannot find my converter

).

TIA

shrike42

srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

don't 2.6 kernels work better, especially usb, using /dev/input/mice?
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shrike42 · n00b Joined: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 7

News to me, will switch my xorg.conf to use that. Unfortunately /dev/input/mice has the same problem(s) :(.

Thanks for the tip though, regardless.

shrike42

srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

Well, pooh, we gonna have to get our hands dirty.

What kinda mouse do you have and what does that section of your xorg.conf look like?

you're not using anything like imwheel, acme or kbmodthing (not it's real name) are ya?
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--You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?
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shrike42 · n00b Joined: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 7

xorg.conf:
[code]
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection
[/code]

I didn't see any other parts of xorg.conf that looked mouse related, let me know if you think I missed something.

And it's a Microsoft something or other...I can't remember exactly what it was called when I bought it, but it's the black Microsoft mouse a bunch of people seem to have...seems rather standard/popular, etc.

I wish I had another mouse around here just to try it and see if I got the same thing happening...but I do have an old Windows computer sitting around and I tried the mouse in it and it worked fine (including the wheel). (If you're wondering why I couldn't test with that mouse from the Windoze box, it's a real old...uh serial mouse were they called? Anyway...won't even physically plug into my Gentoo box :).

Oh, and no...not using any of those...at least I've never heard of them and I can't find any reference to them being installed in any way.

srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

Try using IMPS/2 or perhaps ExplorerPS/2 as the protocol and see if it behaves any better.
_________________
--You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?
-Gentoo Monthly Screenshots

shrike42 · n00b Joined: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 7

Same behaviour for both. The freak-mode thing seemed to happen a little less often, but that just might be wishful thinking...no scrolling though. arg...

Can't find anyone on google with even somewhat similar problems either...

I'm starting to think the inability to scroll isn't X's fault either. If I 'cat /dev/input/mice' and start scrolling the mouse wheel...something should get output, right (nothing does)? I mean I know it's possible that it gets interpreted as something completely non-visible in ASCII or whatever...but...well, doesn't seem likely that neither one would show up as anything.

srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

yeah, that Zaxismapping line should give ya scrolling. and yep, you should see kinda output from that cat'in of the dev. I bet you need a new mouse.

_________________
--You talk the talk, but do you waddle the waddle?
-Gentoo Monthly Screenshots

shrike42 · n00b Joined: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 7

Oh well, could be worse. You really think the mouse would be causing the freak-out mode thing though? It would make sense except it ONLY ever happens when you hold a key down and then move the mouse around a lot...odd.

I'll try a new one and then worry about it I suppose.

Thanks for all the help, I'll post again if new mouse doesn't fix.

shrike42

Kenji Miyamoto · Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 7:08 am Post subject:

Have you tried?:

srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

shrike42 · n00b Joined: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 7

arg. Finally got a new mouse, same problems... The keyboard is PS/2. If it was USB it might actually make some sort of freaky sense, but I really can't figure it out as is. No other OS unfortunately. I'm thinking of trying even just one of those Linux on a CD things and see if the problem is still there, but the downloads are a killer (56k, ouch).

Oh, and it's every game and non-game. Happens in X running every wm I have installed (fluxbox and whatever that default wm is called, the horrible looking one). Also seems to happen when just looking at the output of 'cat /dev/input/mice' but it's hard to tell if the semi-random output is freaking out more than usual or not for sure.

And the xmodmap thing doesn't help unfortunately (errors out because it's only a 3 button mouse). I tried switching 4 and 5, but that didn't help (had to try)...and the rest of the buttons work fine so other combinations don't really make sense.

shrike42

srlinuxx · l33t Joined: 22 Nov 2003 Posts: 627

shrike42 · n00b Joined: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 7

Well, I'm now more confused than ever...I had convinced myself that it was a motherboard problem or something like that, but I tried DSL (thanks for the link btw) and neither problem exists in it (scroll wheel works and mouse doesn't freak out when a key is held).

I tried looking at what's different between my Gentoo install (with problems) and the DSL setup (without problems)...but there are just too many to pin it down easily.

If anyone even has any ideas of what direction to look in, I'd love to hear them...

shrike42