My PS/2 mouse hates modern computers and vice versa
March 13, 2017 10:30 AM Subscribe
Due to a bizarre set of circumstances, my office computer's (wireless, USB) trackball stopped working, so I decided to relocate my home (wired, PS/2) trackball. This trackball glitches insanely if I move it faster than a slow crawl. Still works on the home machine, doesn't work on modern computers (which, amazingly, still have PS/2 ports)
The device I'm trying to make work is a Logitech Trackman Marble+ (T-CL13); the computer I'm trying to make it work on is a Dell Precision 3620 newly purchased last year and running an up-to-date Debian Linux install. My home machine is a Lenovo something-or-other from 2007 or thereabouts; point is, it's about a decade old and presumably has a motherboard to match.
Anyways, here's the syndrome: moving the ball at an even modest rate (like, faster than 5 pixels per second or so) causes the cursor to freak out, jumping to the corners of the screen and registering button-clicks and wheel-scrolls and suchlike. To test if this was my computer/OS or the trackball, I took it to a computer lab in our building, hooked it up to one of their machines (running Windows), and experienced the same issues. I had the same problem when I went to BIOS setup (which, since this is a shiny new machine, actually has a graphical interface with a mouse pointer and all), which pretty definitively rules out OS issues. I plugged it into my decade-old home machine, and lo and behold, it worked great.
I've tried tweaking various parameters to the psmouse kernel module (rate and protocol in particular) without any sort of success, and it's looking like the issue is some major change in how PS/2 mouse input is interpreted in hardware. My pet theory is that on a decade-old mainboard, it's interpreted with dedicated PS/2 hardware, while on a modern machine the PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports are run through a cheap USB conversion and dumped onto the USB bus, and something about that conversion is Not Working for this device).
That having been said, my questions are: can I diagnose this problem more deeply or figure out a workaround, either in hardware or software? Would there be PS/2-to-USB conversion hardware which would do a better job of making it work than my computer's native interpretation of the PS/2 mouse port?
The device I'm trying to make work is a Logitech Trackman Marble+ (T-CL13); the computer I'm trying to make it work on is a Dell Precision 3620 newly purchased last year and running an up-to-date Debian Linux install. My home machine is a Lenovo something-or-other from 2007 or thereabouts; point is, it's about a decade old and presumably has a motherboard to match.
Anyways, here's the syndrome: moving the ball at an even modest rate (like, faster than 5 pixels per second or so) causes the cursor to freak out, jumping to the corners of the screen and registering button-clicks and wheel-scrolls and suchlike. To test if this was my computer/OS or the trackball, I took it to a computer lab in our building, hooked it up to one of their machines (running Windows), and experienced the same issues. I had the same problem when I went to BIOS setup (which, since this is a shiny new machine, actually has a graphical interface with a mouse pointer and all), which pretty definitively rules out OS issues. I plugged it into my decade-old home machine, and lo and behold, it worked great.
I've tried tweaking various parameters to the psmouse kernel module (rate and protocol in particular) without any sort of success, and it's looking like the issue is some major change in how PS/2 mouse input is interpreted in hardware. My pet theory is that on a decade-old mainboard, it's interpreted with dedicated PS/2 hardware, while on a modern machine the PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports are run through a cheap USB conversion and dumped onto the USB bus, and something about that conversion is Not Working for this device).
That having been said, my questions are: can I diagnose this problem more deeply or figure out a workaround, either in hardware or software? Would there be PS/2-to-USB conversion hardware which would do a better job of making it work than my computer's native interpretation of the PS/2 mouse port?
PS/2 -> USB adapters are cheap and plentiful... couldn't hurt to try one. And if it's old enough... did it come with a PS/2 -> Serial port adapter? Could always try that. Many new motherboards still have a serial port.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 10:58 AM on March 13, 2017
posted by lefty lucky cat at 10:58 AM on March 13, 2017
Best answer: There is a good chance that a basic, cheap PS/2 to UBS adapter will not work. You may need a PS/2 to USB converter, which are more expensive, but convert PS/2 signal correctly. I use an old PS/2 trackball and a Model M PS/2 keyboard on my computer, and had to get a converter to get them to work properly.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:13 AM on March 13, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:13 AM on March 13, 2017 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: fimbulvetr: Did you ever try your trackball with a passive PS/2 adapter (or a direct PS/2 connection, if your computer purports to have one)? Did it exhibit similar dysfunction to the way mine behaves?
(I've been assuming that one of those passive adapter doohickies is what's under the Foxconn sheathing sitting between the PS/2 port and the mainboard, and a confirmation that, yeah, old PS/2 devices go crazy on those would do a lot to validate my working theory)
posted by jackbishop at 11:43 AM on March 13, 2017
(I've been assuming that one of those passive adapter doohickies is what's under the Foxconn sheathing sitting between the PS/2 port and the mainboard, and a confirmation that, yeah, old PS/2 devices go crazy on those would do a lot to validate my working theory)
posted by jackbishop at 11:43 AM on March 13, 2017
Best answer: I've used my trackball (a Logitech TrackMan) in the past with direct PS/2 connections without problems. Right now it is connected to a converter that I had to get for my keyboard as I didn't have any luck with those cheap adapters.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:07 PM on March 13, 2017
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:07 PM on March 13, 2017
I doubt my anecdotage helps in any way, because you're way more knowledgable than I am. But I could not get my 1995 Trackman Marble PS/2 to work with any system I've had since the computer I built in 2005, regardless of adapter, drivers, or OS. But I do not know how good the adapters I tried were. I do know that the mouse was still operational at the time I retired it as it still worked with the 2001 Dell I was replacing. The 2005 computer has PS/2 ports, but they've been useless since the final BIOS ASUS released for it. Which is a whole 'nother can of worms.
posted by monopas at 12:16 PM on March 13, 2017
posted by monopas at 12:16 PM on March 13, 2017
Response by poster: Followup: a Monoprice keyboard/mouse dual active-converting adapter worked!
posted by jackbishop at 6:32 PM on March 19, 2017
posted by jackbishop at 6:32 PM on March 19, 2017
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posted by thewumpusisdead at 10:54 AM on March 13, 2017