Win2K will not recognize my Intellimouse Explorer when using PS / 2 connector [intellimouse explorer] [good shape]
Q: Hi guys,
Im using an MS Intellimouse Explorer Mouse (with PS / 2 adater) into a Win2K machine. Today I formatted my system to “fresh things” a bit, but after the Win2K installation finished and rebooting my system, I noticed that the mouse was not detected, which is weird because I always use it plugged into the PS / 2 gate with no trouble. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling again but it did not work. To verify that my mouse was in good shape I connected to one of the USB ports and it worked without problems, but I can not use the USB port “because I have only two, and both are busy with my Palm and my Webcam.
The only thing different in my config is that ACPI is now enabled (was not active with my previous Win2K installation) 0.
Any ideas?, perhaps a kind of conflict with the IRQ or something like that?. How can I correct this?, Should I mess with the IRQ config in my BIOS?. My computer is an old Abit Bh6 with a P2-450
Best Regards,
PalmDrac
Re:Hi guy,
I've disabled ACPI in the BIOS, clean installed Win2K and the Mouse is working again connected to the PS/2 port. So I don't know if it's directly ACPI's fault, but obviously it has something to do with it.
One thing that I noticed is different from when the computer was with ACPI on is that the PS/2 mouse now is using IRQ 12. When the computer had ACPI on and the mouse was detected but didn't worked, it was using IRQ 9.
This might be a novice question…., is it possible to change the IRQ when using ACPI and force it to be IRQ 12?
I'll stay with ACPI off for the moment but I'll try to install only a few neccesary programs, just in case I need to clean install again to go back to ACPI on, that is if we can find a solution to this problem.
Thanks,
PalmDrac
Re:I really don't see how ACPI could be the problem. I've setup Win2K with/without ACPI and PS/2 devices work just fine. With ACPI you will find multiple devices sharing the same IRQ; this is normal. Since you claim that the mouse worked fine BEFORE the install, most likely it is the OS that is fubar. You do not need to load any drivers for the mouse to work since it has native support.
Instead of spending countless hours trying to fix it, do another clean install. I'd also leave ACPI enabled.
Re:Hi guy,
I tried your suggestion…. still not working 
. BTW, I noticed that Win2K detects the correct Mouse, it reports "Microsoft Intellimouse on PS/2 (Intellipoint)"
I think I'm gonna try to revert to Standard HAL (as described in the IRQ sharing FAQ here at AnandTech), to confirm if the problem is ACPI.
Anyway I'm still open to suggestions, I'd like to use ACPI but if the mouse won't work I'll have to stick to standard HAL.
Thanks
PalmDrac
Re:W2K is old enough that it is conceivable that the install program misidentified it and installed a driver that doesn't work right with Intellimouse Explorer. If you have a driver disk for it, try that.
Could be tricky without a mouse. You might deleting the ? entry while the mouse is on the USB. Shut down. Put the mouse on the PS2. When W2K restarts it should redetect and hopefully ask you for a driver disk. If not you'll have to force install the driver.
I think ACPI does use an interrupt.
Old motherboards may not have a 100% ACPI compliant BIOS, not to the satisfaction of XP anyway, maybe not W2K. For XP, you press F7 at the point the installer says to press F6 is you need a driver disk.
Re:Hello Warders,
Check the pins….they are ok.
Win2K detects a PS/2 Mouse but in the device manager it appears with a "?" sign. It reports that the device "coudn't be initialized, use the troubleshooter"….. btw, the troubleshooting info of Win2K sucks. 
Thanks!
PalmDrac
Re:does your computer not detecting the mouse at all? does it even detect an unknown device at your ps2 port under device manager?
make sure the pins from the adapter of the mouse are ok. one time i inserted the mouse in a slanted angle, and win2k booted up not detecting the mouse… took me awhile b4 realizing that i've bent one of those pins. simply straighten it and make sure it goes into the correct holes 
Re:Hi
I'll try to find a PS/2 mouse to test it… but it's important to mention that the mouse was fully functional connected to the PS/2 port this morning, just before I formatted the disk and re-installed Win2K.
Since I haven't installed anything else beside the OS, I'm thinking of formatting again and re-installing Win2K but with ACPI disabled in the BIOS (as it was this morning prior to the first format, when the mouse was working with no trouble). If it turns out that the mouse works again connected to the PS/2 after reinstalling with ACPI disabled, what might be the problem?, how could I solve it?
Thanks,
PalmDrac
Re:Try another known good ps/2 mouse. If it doesn't work then you've got problems with the ps/2 port on your motherboard most likely.
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Tags: good shape, intellimouse explorer