Out of the blue, the (original Apple) mouse on my daughter's iMAC has stopped working properly. After one or two seconds of inactivity, the cursor disappears. If you unplug the mouse and plug it back in, it works until the next moment of inactivity. I put the mouse on my G4 and it did the same thing. So I brought home an almost new iMAC mouse from work to get us thru the weekend. It does the same thing too -- on both the iMAC and G4 (tho it never did it at work).

We have tried plugging the mouse into different USB ports with no success.

Anyone know what's going on here?

(My Mccally mouse continues to work fine on both machines.)

[Misha]

Hmm.... definately sounds like some sort of System Folder issue. Either some extension is missing, or something is in there that's messing things up. Did you install any software recently? What software do both the iMac and G4 share in common?

[Cipher13]

On top of what Misha said, try booting with the MacOS Base extension set (use the Extensins Manager in Control Panels), and try going by process of elimination to find the culprit, if indeed it is a System prob (which I think it is).

Cipher13

When I get home tonight, I'll do the extensions thing. And I can't say right off hand what the two machines have in common ... or not beyond the basics. I'll have to spend some time on the other machine and check it out. We did both recently install Palace tho. That might be a clue.

I've heard from some others, however, who've had similar experiences and the word about is to move to a USB hub, that it's actually a
USB problem of some kind. One of the responders was an Apple authorized repair shop who suggested I contact Apple as they are beginning to be aware of the problem as a bug of some kind and want to know when it crops up. I don't know if that is true or not, but I think I will try to contact them just the same.

[Indigo Boy]

At work I use Macs--earlier, an old 80mHz ppc and more recently a G4. Our office is constantly very dry, and if I got up and moved around my office and then sat down and touched the mouse (discharging static electricity), a) the mouse would slow down dramatically with the old ppc machine or b) stop moving altogether on the G4, which could then be corrected when I unplugged and replugged in the USB mouse. Is it possibly a static electricity issue at your house? I eventually just got in the habit of touching the metal file cabinet next to my desk before I touched the mouse, and that seemed to prevent the problem.

[This message has been edited by Indigo Boy (edited 09-12-2000).]

[Cipher13]

The static thing makes sense... interferring with the USB bus...
I dunno about the hub thing though... from my experience they cause more problems than they fix...
If you do decide to get one, make sure its a powered one, but before hand, try the extensions thing...
Um... what System are you running? RAM? What perihperals do you have on the USB bus?
Is the mouse going into the keyboard, and the keyboard going into the first USB port?
The keyboard isn't going into a hub is it?
Have you reset the PRAM? Hold Apple-Option-P-R at startup until you hear three chimes then let go... maybe both comps somehow got corrupted PRAM, perhaps by the same prog or something...
Or to reset the PRAM you can use TechTool 1.21 (freeware). Get it here: TechTool 1.21.
Some people reckon it does a better job at resetting it...

Cipher13

[This message has been edited by Cipher13 (edited 09-12-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Cipher13 (edited 09-12-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Cipher13 (edited 09-12-2000).]

Lots of good stuff to consider. I'm so swamped I'm not going to get back to doing much experimenting until the weekend. For the record, the iMAC is running 7.5 with 64K.
The G4 is running 9 with 128K. I've zapped the PRAM on both. No peripherals are connected at this time with the exception of the cable modem connected to the G4 (and that's not a USB connection of course).

I'll go play with extensions MY favorite thing to do... and will take a look at static possibilities.

Thx

[Cipher13]

7.5?!? I'll take it you mean 8.5?
And you mean megs of RAM, not K.
What kind of iMac is it? It really should be running OS 9.04.
Same with the G4 - if it is runnning 9.00, or 9.02, upgrade to 9.04.

Cipher13

Yes, you're right. Sorry. I'm too busy to think. It's 8.5. I have absolutely no memory anymore as to why we stuck with 8.5 instead of upgrading other than it was a recommendation for something we were doing, now long since forgotten.