Keyboard/mouse difficulties

[volfro]

Hi,

 

Running Mandrake 10 and Windows XP on an AMD 1.6GHz with 512 megs of RAM.

 

About every other restart/fresh start or so, my mouse and keyboard don't react. It's very strange. They're just generic PS/2 wheelmouse and 102 key keyboard and every once in awhile, neither works; I can't log in to my computer or anything, because nothing reacts.

 

During install, the mouse didn't work but the keyboard did--but when the install finished, everything worked fine. Then I restarted, and lo and behold, keyboard/mouse didn't react. Restarted again, and they did.

 

What's the deal? The drivers are correct.

 

Still haven't solved my audio problems that're stated right here. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[arctic]

hello, volfro. :)

 

i just read your other posting. my hint: if no driver works with your distribution, maybe you should try to install a newer kernel. the newer the kernel, the bigger the chances are that there will be a driver for your soundcard.

 

now to the keyboard/mouse issue:

 

this is truly strange. i had a problem with my keyboard which (sometimes) stopped working when i lit the light of my desktop-lamp. both (comp + lamp) are plugged into the same box, so something weird must have happened to the power supply.

 

now, my question is: are there many electronics (comp, lamp, modem,...) plugged into the same box? did you experience the same thing with other distros? if not, are there any error-logs in your /home directory?

 

not much help right now, but maybe a start for something bigger. :)

[volfro]

i just read your other posting. my hint: if no driver works with your distribution, maybe you should try to install a newer kernel. the newer the kernel, the bigger the chances are that there will be a driver for your soundcard.

 

Okay, I'll try that. Not sure how to update the kernel, but from what I can tell, there's plenty of how-tos with that. Any good resources or walkthroughs that explain the kernel updating process? Like I said, I need my hand held...

 

now, my question is: are there many electronics (comp, lamp, modem,...) plugged into the same box? did you experience the same thing with other distros? if not, are there any error-logs in your /home directory?

 

There's not much else plugged into the strip...nothing out of the ordinary. My monitor, my computer, a printer, a phone, and my subwoofer, and I think it's a 10-space power strip. But that's an interesting theory.

 

I don't SEE any error logs in the home directory. Hidden files shown, etc. Any specific names I should be looking for?

 

When I tried Redhat 9, I didn't have any issues with the mouse or keyboard, but the sound never worked. I never had any issues whatsoever with Knoppix.

 

Thanks for replying!!

[arctic]

http://mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=13792

 

this link might help. it explains the usage of a new kernel (for another device but that is irrelevant) and it has some further links that might help. take a look at them, then post your questions, in case something is unclear (which is usually the case ;)).

 

good luck :)

[volfro]

I just tried to boot to linux SEVEN TIMES. SEVEN TIMES I tried. And every single time, it reacted to neither the mouse nor the keyboard. So I just have to hit the power button to restart, which, I know, it's bad, but what choice do I have? MAN that's frustrating!! I'm considering formatting and starting from scratch.

 

I spent much of last night trying to compile kernel 2.6.8 from kernel.org, to no avail. I don't think I meet the software requirements--at least, for some of the software. I urpmi'd much of it, after checking versions, but some of it wasn't available to the mandrake package program.

 

I also tried unplugging various hardware from the power strip, but that didn't help either. Not sure what's going on here.

 

Thanks for your help though! Keep it coming, I'm learning a lot!

[rdbrooks]

I really don't know what to tell you about the mouse and keyboard problems. If you only installed once, maybe something went wrong. You could try reinstalling, but don't expect much from it.

You mentioned you tried redhat 9 before. I have tried it in the past also and had some hardware issues I couldn't get around. Redhat 9 has been out for quite a while. There is no redhat 10. The project was changed to the Fedora Core project. I have tried it recently. (I was trying numerous distributions of linux, trying to find one that supported my video without having to pull my hair out figuring out how to manually install drivers. It didn't solve my problem so I uninstalled it.) Fedora core is essentially the latest update of Redhat Linux for general public use, in other words, you could think of it as Redhat 10. You might want to give it a try.

Personally, I think it would be a shame to be unable to get Mandrake 10 to work. Like I said, I have tried numerous distributions, and Mandrake 10 is where it's at. (Even though I still haven't got my video to work beyond the capabilities of the generic VESA driver.)