Poor Mouse Performance When on Portreplicator (driver ?)

[darcym]

hi all,

I have a few thinkpad T mobile laptops ranging from a 21 to a 30.

Each one of these has had the IBM driver packs installed which include the trackpoint driver.

I've started using one of these along with the port replicator as a "docking station" for one of the users as a "portable desktop" solution.

When the thinkpad is undocked the onboard touchpad/trackpoint nipple works fine. When the laptop connects to the port replicator it uses a Logitech wireless mouse / keyboard setup.

the keyboard works fine, but the mouse is very slow and jerky and often looses total connection and has to be reconnected to the wirless reciever, or at least a right click to bring the mouse back on screen.

I've gone through the usual precautions such as making sure the mouse is a safe distance away from speakers/monitor, yet well within a usable range, I've check the batteries etc etc. None of this makes a difference. I've tested the mouse/keyboard combo with a genuine desktop PC and it works fine.

After testing with other thinkpad the problem appears to be when the laptop docks or is started up on the dock, it doesn't know that
he mouse is not the trackpoint, so loads the trackpoint driver.

Looking in device manager the mouse is still shown as a the Track point, and also shows the track point driver is loaded. (version 3.13).

This is further backed up by the fact that the scroll wheel on the logitech mouse does not work.

I've tried installing the logitech drivers/software, but this makes no difference.

Has anyone had this type of problems with internal/external hardware not being recognised ?

Does anyone have a suggetion for a solution ?

the mouse is connected via PS2 but it makes no difference if connected via USB.

Many thanks.

[fschwep]

Practically the same heer, only with my Logitech Click! optical wireless mouse the mousewheel does work (not so the extra button which is supposedly for paging back and forth, but of course the TP has its own paging buttons). I've connected the wireless transmitter with the USB/PS2-adapter to the PS2-port. That way it does not matter if I bump into the trackpoint now and then, but every time I boot the system returns to standard speed settings for the mouse (in the standard mouse setup that also has the trackpoint).

HA!! Found it! Connect the USB wireless receiver to the LEFT USB port, that is one of the ports in the TP itself, not the dock. And presto, Windows suddenly recognizes it and the Logitech Setpoint software works. Now for the question what is more comfortable, just the mouse or mouse and trackpoint together...
This also means that a TP42 that is docked to (in my case) a Mini Dock, retains its own two USB ports, so it has a total of six. Must be enough for most people...

[fschwep]

I can add to the other post that on our R51 with the same type of mouse, the problem is the same with the mouse connected through an external USB hub. It obviously needs to be connected directly to a non-hub USB port to work properly.

[darcym]

Interesting responses,

however this does not help my situation because

a.) the wireless reciver is connected via PS2 on both keyboard and mouse into the docking station/port replicator

b.) The USB ports on a T30 are not accessable when in the port replicator


The must be some way/trick to getting the thinkpad to recognise when an external mouse is plugged in to it, other wise whats the point in having the mouse and keyboard PS2 on the port replicator if the laptop hardware/software combination can't differentiate ?

Further advice and help is needed, however it is interesting to see other people having this problem.

thanks

[fschwep]

Well, the behaviour of a Logitech wireless mouse through a USB hub may have nothing to do with the ThinkPad; you'd have to try the same thing on another notebook to be sure (I only have ThinkPads here, so I can't test that).
I can understand that IBM might have a reason to design the PS/2 mouse connector the way they do: if you hook up an external mouse, it's usually because you want to use it instead of the trackpoint. The trackpoint is, technically speaking, a PS/2 mouse and you can, probably, only have one of those connected at the same time. A USB mouse is a different piece of hardware altogether, so it won't conflict with the PS/2. Similarly, the touchpad on machines that have both may not, technically, be a PS/2 mouse pointer. Which would explain why it has its own buttons.
So there may not be any way to hook up an external mouse through the PS/2 port (of a dock or the ThinkPad itself) without the system thinking that it is replacing the trackpoint.
I know this does not help solve your problem, it just might explain it.

[ruthlessbrad]

My friend has a PS/2 mouse on a T21. If he plugs it in while the computer is already on, it is very slow and has a lag. The PS/2 mouse has to be plugged into the computer while the computer is turned off, or needs to be rebooted. Try connecting it to the USB port if you have not done that already.

I have two mice that I connect to my T43. My port replicator has a wireless Logitech USB mouse connected to it. When I am away from the port replicator, I use a wired USB Logitech mouse. I had trouble with the two different Logitech drivers installed on the same machine which led to strange performance with the mice. The MX1000 has SetPoint drivers, and the MX500 has MouseWare drivers. When I installed the SetPoint drivers first and the MouseWare drivers second, I had problems. If I reversed the order of installation, everything worked fine. Try uninstalling all of your mouse drivers, then installing the Logitech drivers before the trackpoint drivers.

[darcym]

just to add a little more info to this.

I'm not using a USB mouse or keyboard - I'm using a wirless PS2 mouse and keyboard plugged into the port replicator when the thinkpad is powered off.

the mouse "works" however its performance is very poor, very jerky and the scroll wheel doesn't work. Further investigation shows that this is because the trackpoint driver does not work well with all mice. However reading up on the thinkpads if you put external hardware drivers onto the system, the thinkpad should pick the best device to use (eg the native none thinkpad driver) when the external hardware is in use.

I have the logitech drivers on the system, so in theory when the mouse/keyboard is plugged in it should use the logitech drivers, not the track point driver.

The mouse works fine on "regular" PC's and laptops just not the thinkpads, which appears to be because the trackpoint driver is not good with it.

I'd apprciate a more experienced voice on this.

Is it common / right for the thinkpad to use the trackpoint driver for external mice ?

Is there a way to force it to use the logitech driver when docked ?


Thanks.

[darcym]

still no response from IBM, bit of a lack of info on this forum.

Any change anyone's had chance to learn more about this yet ?

[darcym]

as its a new year, thought I'd bump this to see if anyone had new light on it.

[davidspalding]

This be the T40/1/2/3 forum, so if you're talking about a T30 on a dock replicator, try that forum. (Hey, Mod, how about a nudge?)

I used a T30 a coupla years ago, and I used external meeces. I have had poor experiences using PS/2 external mice with an internal pointing device, which are usually listed as PS/2. Solution? Use a USB connection. That way, the driver won't conflict with the Trackpoint/UltraNav driver.

Since the T30 dock has only 1 USB (I wonder who thought up THAT design? ), I used a hub. At least one of my USB devices was powered through the USB connection, so the hub had to be powered. For things like wireless mice, Wacom tablets, Webcams, you want a powered USB hub. Run DEVMGMT.MSC and look for the USB Root Hub devices. I believe that on the Power tab, you can see how much power is available on the hub, and the connected devices table will show how much power is required by the devices. Example, my Casio E-125 cradle requires a whopping 2 mA while my Comfort Mouse 3000 requires 100 mA. The hub offers 500 mA per port. I remember my Webcam required something like that, and my Belkin hub only offered 100 mA per port until I plugged it in. Hence, the Webcam wouldn't work until the hub was plugged in.

If this is irrelevant to your problem, sorry. I can't make heads or tails of which specific phenomenon you're trying to get an answer on in this thread.