dead mouse, Dell Dimension, restore BIOS clear NVRAM

[Mike Ditka]

My Dell came with a wheel mouse (PS/2 mouse port). For a while, I switched
the mouse to another computer and attached a serial mouse to the Dell. Now
I want to remove the serial mouse and reattach the wheel mouse, but when I
do, XP doesn't recognize that the wheel mouse is attached, i.e. after
booting XP, the mouse pointer shows up in the middle of the screen, but
moving the mouse has no effect on the mouse pointer, and if I look in the
device manager, XP doesn't know the mouse is plugged into the port.

The wheel mouse works fine on my other computer, and a mouse attached to the
serial port works fine on my Dell, which seems to indicate the problem is
with the PS/2 mouse port. I checked in Setup, and it shows the mouse port
as enabled.

So, first, I'm wondering if anyone else has run across a problem with the
PS/2 mouse port on a Dell Dimension.

I looked through Dell support, and one of the solutions it gives for mouse
problems is to restore the BIOS to its original state and clear NVRAM. It
gives a procedure that will restore the BIOS to its "factory setting".

I am wondering, how much trouble am I going to get into if I restore the
BIOS and clear NVRAM? These Dell computers come in lots of hardware
configurations; how different is the "factory setting" from my specific
configuration? Will I need to go into Setup and redefine my disk drives,
number of cylinders, number of heads, etc., and god knows what else?

Thanks,
MD

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Hard drives have been detected properly for years.. I can't remember the
last time I had to know number of cylinders etc.. resetting BIOS is as easy
as removing and replacing the mobo battery, or in some instances briefly
setting a jumper on the board..

 

[ANONYMOUS]

If it is still under a warranty why not send it back to for them to fix
the problem?

Have you tried anothe Ps/2 mouse to see if it works? sometimes it is
work installing the mouse driver by downloading from the manufaturer's
website. I agree, XP should have the drivers but actively installing
new ones might do the trick.

Have you tried right-clicking on the mouse in hardware configurations
and to update the driver to see if this works?

 

[MAP]

So, first, I'm wondering if anyone else has run across a problem with

the PS/2 mouse port on a Dell Dimension.

I have a Dell Dimension 8300 using the PS/2 mouse port,if I reboot all is
well if I shutdown and restart about half the time the mouse does not
work,if I shut down again and bootup the mouse will start working again.I
haven't found the reason for this yet but since I leave my system on all the
time it's not much of a problem.
Try rebooting a few times and see if it starts working.

One more thing that I noticed it seems to happen more often if I try to use
the mouse before all of my programs finish loading at bootup if I wait until
everything is loaded it happens less often.
Good Luck, and if you find the cause of it please let us know.