[Qono]

I recently bought an Adesso ergonomic blue keyboard, the kind that is split in the middle, as well as a Kensington Trackball mouse. Both seem to work rather poorly, sometimes the keyboard stops working while the mouse continues to function, and vice versa. Sometimes this can be fixed by unplugging/replugging, so I know it's not a system/software crash. It happens when I'm online or using various programs...

1) Has anyone had similar experiences with these products?

2) could it be an OS problem? I'm using OS 8.6 on a B/W G3 400.

3) Could it be an extension conflict? It seems too sporadic for Conflict Catcher to fix...

It's even gotten to the point where I'm using my old crummy G3 standard keyboard and mouse. At least they work, despite being ill-fitted for human hands. I have called Adesso and Kensington, no help from them except to tell me that plugging them into a hub may not give the mouse/keyboard full power. Is this USB "plug and play" just too good to be true? Thanks for any help you can offer. Its a shame to see these lying unused on the floor, harboring dust mites...

[Qono]

I forgot to add that plugging the keyboard/mouse directly into the G3 tower, and not the hub, did not work any better...

This is exactly the problem I had a while ago with my MS intellimouse and an ergonomic keyboard.

I finally traced the problem to a rogue extension. It is named something like USBHIDUniversal and will show up in the Extension Manager as not belonging to any group. (Note that there is a valid extension with a very similar name that belongs to a group).

I'm suffering on the PCs at school and as such cannot provide the real names.

Hope it helps.
Grant

I don't mean to be a smart ass, but...

I am constantly amazed by the number of messages I read that say "I'm having trouble with this 3rd party keyboard, or this 3rd party mouse, etc"

Funny thing, you know the mouse and keyboard that came with my Macs? They work! Every time too!

Think I'll stick with them.

[exa]

The problem with usb... just.. don't work... adb is so much more stable, I am loving my extended 2 keyboard and kensington turbo mouse and kensington thinking mouse... and gravis gamepad and gravis firebird... all connected to the same adb port... all still working
eh, enough of my ranting...

[Qono]

What about the number of messages responding to a problem that offer no help at all? Just as amazing, if not more...

A fair point, Qono. Like I said, I didn't mean to be a smartass, but perhaps I came off that way. So I appologize for that.

As to the problem at hand, you mentioned that you have tried just about everything, including "plugging the keyboard/mouse directly into the G3 tower". Was this into two seperate USB ports, and not mouse into keyboard then keyboard into one port?

GrantS has a point as well. It could be some kind of extention conflict. My guess is that the keyboard would probably work with standard extentions, but you probably had to install special software for the trackball.Perhaps you need to replace this with USB Overdrive? I have never used it, but have heard others say it has solved some of these kind of problems.

You could try searching these formus for the word overdrive. There should be some info.

Anyone else, any ideas?

[Qono]

Believe it or not, I am writing this on the Adesso keyboard w/ Trackball mouse connected to it and functioning properly. Not sure if it is the 9.0.4 update I did, or the disabling of that extension, but it seems to be good so far. There are two ports on the back of the keyboard, one of which was not loading the trackball mouse during startup. Plugging/repluggin worked, but then I tried it in the other slot and it seems to work on startup now. I have tried the mouse in the G3 slot but that leaves me no slot to put the hub into. Thank you all for your suggestions, much appreciated. I will keep you updated if it does indeed continue to function properly...

same problem here still trying to solve it. I have the Adesson Ice keyboard. And it locks up all the time. The sick thing is I can start my G4 from the keyboard but then the keyboard dies.

I have unplugged and replugged:
- through my hub
- through the back G4 port
- through the original mac keyboard as a hub still doesn't work, I will look up the over drive and play with that.