grandpa - 7:31 am on Mar 20, 2004 (gmt 0)

Here's a little more info I've managed to gather. (BTW, it's still freezes up)

About 1/2 hour ago I froze up, while using the mouse. More precisely, this is what appears to be happening.

I'll be moving the pointer, and when it reaches the end of the movement it freezes. The term "buffer overrun" comes to mind, although I'll admit I don't know that that term really applies to mice. But it seems that once the mouse is finished with the move instruction it decides to 'take a break'. The only thing is, you never know if it's "this time" or "the next time".

Also, I think I can safely rule out drivers. Why? We've installed a second hard drive (slave to the first). After freezing me out, I shut down the system. Waited a few minutes and powered it back up. No matter what drive I selected there was no mouse and no keyboard. That suggests to me the problem is NOT a driver. Maybe something in the BIOS... but why now? The boss doesn't know what BIOS is or how to access it. I've learned to leave well enough alone... maybe I could try setting up default settings tho.

So if it's a hardware problem, where to look? Motherboard, memory chips, processor? I'll take it all apart again tomorrow and see what there is to see. I know the fans are all running, but maybe not up to snuff? How do you measure the cooling power of a fan sitting on a processor?

When I powered the machine down the bright red heel on the mouse stayed lit. Finally, in a powered down mode I unplugged the mouse & keyboard, the re-plugged them and when I powered back up all was well. Maybe it's the new fangled mouse. They have no ball, you know. It's all whiz-bang electronics stuffed in a mouse shell. Is there a real likelyhood that a defective mouse will also disable the keyboard?

I swear, I'm gonna push for a non-M$ OS, maybe even a mac.