MSI K7T266Pro (MS-6380) USB problem. Please advise.

[Gamblor 0]

Dear all,

 

( Introduction )

This problem is very important to me because I do not know if it is my motherboard that is bad. It is in regards to the MSI K7T266 Pro-R (MS-6380) motherboard's USB and a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer.

I'm just looking for a confirmation if other people are having this problem as well.

To first prove that my mouse is in working order, I can tell you that if I use a USB-to-PS2 adapter, the mouse exhibits no problems at all. Also, you have my word that this mouse was working perfectly before my upgrade to the MS-6380. My system specs and OS are posted at the end. For easy reading, I've broken my post into sections.

 

( The Problem )

If you have a moment, please take a look at the following description of my problem:

I have noticed two ways to detect the problem.

First, I notice that the mouse cursor would freeze *intermittently*. It would lock-up for at most half a second and then keep going again. This happens maybe once every 3 to 5 minutes and upwards to 10 minutes. It usually requires a few minutes of use before it exhibits its first symptom. The mouse never fails completely and never requires a reboot. After each little lock-up, I would be able to continue on without any more glitches.

Second, notice the red decorative light on the Intellimouse Explorer. I'm NOT referring to the Intelli-eye.(I know the Intelli-eye turns off occasionally) I'm referring to the regular red light there for decoration and normally, it's suppose to be ALWAYS ON whenever the mouse is initialised. Now, I know I have a problem because that red light doesn't stay ON all the time even though it is suppose to stay on. Whenever I get one of those half-second lock-ups, I can correspond it with that red light turning OFF for a half-second and then come back on again. Once again, this happens when the lock-up happen so it's appx once every 5 minutes or so.

 

( My plea for Help )

Please do this for me if you have a few minutes to spare:

If you have a K7T266 Pro-R and an Intellimouse Explorer on USB port, please sit at your computer and stare at the red light for 10 minutes. If it goes off, then I can confirm it's not my motherboard. Please do not watch for any less than 10 minutes and tell me it is

working for you.

 

I've tried many different settings in the BIOS and many different hardware configurations. Even with the most barebone system, I still experience this problem. I have tried different driver versions and different fixes but still to no avail. I'm not even looking for a fix

right now, I'm just looking for someone's confirmation that this is a problem. If it is my motherboard, I will need to return it SOON. I've reinstalled Win2k and Win98se about 20 times total now and I still have no improvement. (I'm not exaggerating)

 

( System Specs and OS )

 

Windows 2000 Pro SP2 (tried Win98se using seperate HD install as well but same problem)

Athlon 1.2Ghz using 133mhz fsb

MSI K7T266 Pro-R (MS-6380) AMIBIOS v1.3

256mb Crucial PC2100 at 266mhz DDR, 4-way interleaving, Cas 2.5

Maxtor DiamondMax 45Plus 30gig (on Primary master, Ultra DMA enabled)

Pioneer DVD-113CR (on secondary master, PIO mode for now)

RAID on-board is disabled

Diamond V770 Ultra (TNT2 Ultra on 4x AGP)

3Com 3c905B NIC (PCI #2)

SoundBlaster Live value (PCI #3)

Sparkle 300W power supply

(Tested Enermax 350W too)

Keyboard Fujitsu PS/2

Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer USB

 

( Driver versions )

 

VIA 4-in-1 v4.32 installed

USB filter 1.08

nVidia reference drivers 6.50

SBLive Liveware 3.0

Intellipoint 3.2

All other drivers are default from Win2k

 

Thank you for your time. Your reply is greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

 

Gamblor

calvin@telus.net

[Wolf87 0]

I do not have that motherboard but these ideas may help:

 

Check for BIOS lines related to the mouse. Sometimes a line in PCI configuration allows allocation of interrupt 12 to other devices. Do not allow that even if it refers only to PS/2 functions.

 

Try Via 4-in1 2.9 because of improved stability with less bugs.

 

Try disabling any other USB device while you test the mouse and try switching the mouse in any alternate USB port (reinstall drivers).

 

The Intellimouse driver sometimes needs to be removed and reinstalled at least 2 times before working correctly.

 

 

If you decide to replace board, take care to choose another brand name with a different chipset.

[Gamblor 0]

Dear Wolf87

 

I'm afraid I don't understand your suggestion about allocation of Interrupt 12. My USB uses IRQ 5 right now and it is on its own. Other devices are using IRQ12, however. Could you please elaborate on your advice?

 

Furthermore, I have tried older versions of the 4-in-1 drivers but perhaps due to a lack of support for the KT266 chipsets, I found that my system became highly unstable overall. That is why I opted to continue troubleshooting while using the 4.32 drivers.

Also, the Intellimouse Explorer was the only USB device on the system. I have not plugged anything else in the USB ports while trying all 5 USB ports (3 VIA hubs). They ALL exhibit the exact same problem, with reinstallation of drivers or without. When testing the other ports, I have made sure that I'm only enabling them one at any given time.

 

Finally, the problem persists with or without Intellipoint driver and I've reinstalled it enough to know that it's not making a difference.

 

Just for the record, do you use the K7T266 Pro-R along with an MS

Intellimouse Explorer on USB? I just wanted to clarify if you're just

a kind person offering to help, OR if you actually have the

Intellimouse Explorer on the K7T266 and got it to work on USB

flawlessly.

 

Thank you for your time.

 

Gamblor

[Wolf87 0]

I do not have any MSI motherboard.

 

Irq 12 is the standard Irq for polling of PS/2 mouse device. If possible do not allocate other devices to Irq 12. USB simply needs one Irq and 5 is irrelevant and OK.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/...SRCH&SPR=IM

 

Some ideas:

 

1) You could reinstall without ACPI. Push F5 and F6 right at the beginning of Windows 2K installation. Choose Standard PC and install the controller driver when required. ACPI may create those anomalies.

 

2) Start, Run, Regedit and make a Registry backup.

 

Then modify those registry entries to increase mouse ring buffer in:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\msi8042\Parameters

 

MouseDataQueueSize - Increase this number; decimal 100 may be doubled.

 

MouseSynchIn100ns - Increase this number; 20,000,000 = 2 seconds.

 

3) Put your keyboard on USB. Many keyboard have both PS/2 and USB plugs but the drivers work correctly only for USB. Since mouse and keyboard use common resources that impedes mouse functioning.

 

 

So 2) and 3) are easy to check but very probably 1) is the solution.

[Gamblor 0]

Dear Wolf87,

 

After checking my BIOS settings, I'm confident in reporting that this MSI motherboard does not have any entry that relates to an option to "query the PS/2 port" or IRQ12, as suggested by you and the MS tech notes.

 

Furthermore, I have already disabled ACPI function in my BIOS since I first received this motherboard, so, all the Win2k installs I've done have been "Standard PC".

 

My keyboard is not a USB keyboard so I cannot try your third suggestion.

 

However, in regards to your registry edit, I am having trouble finding where to put the registry key. I can find a registry group that contains the "MouseDataQueueSize" and "MouseSynchIn100ns" keys however, they are not in the same location as you specified. They are under "Services\Mousclass\Parameters" and again in

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\Root\*PNP0F03\1_0_21_0_31_0\Device Parameters"

 

What should I do? Should I just make the "msi8042\Parameters" group and then add those keys?

Also, since I've been switching this Intellimouse back and forth between USB and PS/2, I'm having a hard time differentiating which registry entry refers to which one.

 

Thank you for your time. Much appreciated, as always.

 

Cheers!

[Wolf87 0]

A) A very simple idea is to disable all pointers and pointer options in Intellipoint Properties:

 

-Pointer shadow;

-Pointer should be none

-Hide pointer;

-Pointer move to selection

 

Many motherboards used to exhibit sound and graphic anomalies (jitter and mouse lock) with those options enabled until Bios upgrades came.

 

 

Check mouse drivers list in device manager; it should look like:

 

c:\winnt\system32\drivers\ipfilter.sys -file version 3.20.0484

c:\winnt\system32\drivers\mouclass.sys -file version 5.00.2139.1

c:\winnt\system32\drivers\mouhid.sys -file version 5.00.2142.1

 

 

C) In Registry, only the lines in Current Control Set have to be dealt with, but only after the necessary preliminary backup:

 

1) Try changing the PNP parameters "QueueSize" and "SynchIn100ns":

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\Root\*PNP0F03\1_0_21_0_31_0\Device Parameters]

"Migrated"=dword:00000001

"EnableWheelDetection"=dword:00000002

"MouseDataQueueSize"=dword:00000064

"MouseResolution"=dword:00000003

"MouseSynchIn100ns"=dword:01312d00

"SampleRate"=dword:00000064

"WheelDetectionTimeout"=dword:000005dc

"MouseInitializePolled"=dword:00000000

 

2) Try changing the Mouclass parameter "QueueSize" here too:

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Mouclass\Parameters]

"ConnectMultiplePorts"=dword:00000000

"MaximumPortsServiced"=dword:00000003

"MouseDataQueueSize"=dword:00000064

"PointerDeviceBaseName"="PointerClass"

 

3) Try changing this mouhid parameter Dword "PointerAsAbsolute" to 1:

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\mouhid\Parameters] "TreatAbsolutePointerAsAbsolute"=dword:00000000

 

 

D) Improve responsiveness of the OS:

 

Enable this to avoid OS processes paging to HD & change Dword to 1

 

[HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/Session Manager/Memory Management]: "DisableExecutivePaging"

 

"IOPageLockLimit" change it to 1048576 Decimal.

 

 

E) Enable mouse priority threading & CPU allocation

 

First right click My computer, Advanced, Performance options, select background services to enable use of priority levels.

 

Then right click taskbar, TaskManager, Processes. From the Menu choose View, Columns, enable Base Priority & increase pointer.exe.

 

 

Of course, increasing performance has meaning and effect only when the system already functions properly. Allocating hardware resources may still help.

[Gamblor 0]

Dear wolf87,

 

I'm sorry I haven't replied yet because I've been out of town. I'll try to give your suggestions a test a.s.a.p. Just wanted to let you know that I haven't lost track of this thread.

Thank you for your time.

 

-Gamblor

[Wolf87 0]

Sufficiency of electrical power might be a relevant factor. I understand power is allocated for a limited amount to Usb and then shared between the usb outlets.

 

With Intellimouse Explorer on Usb port 2 sharing with Lexmark printer on Usb port 1 whether online or offline, either the mouse alone or the whole computer locks up two or three times a day. Once the mouse is plugged on isolated USB 5, that does not happen. Logitech Wingman always works in USB port 2, tied to the Lexmark printer, perhaps because it uses only 40 % the electrical power needed by the mouse.

 

Check the Power Tab of Generic USB Hub, in the Universal Serial Bus Devices line of Device Manager, to see the electrical allocation.

 

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q242/0/62.asp

 

This site offers a lot of information on USB:

 

http://www.usbman.com/