IBM R-52 PROBLEM

[IBM R-52 USER]

Greetings and Salutations,
I am posting for the first time on this forum and apologise ahead of time if I am posting in the wrong area. I am not a computer expert, but, have learnt a couple of things as I have attempted to resolve computer issues that I have experienced.

As per my user name, my issue relates to a "IBM R-52 THINKPAD". It is a laptop type of computer and was recently given to me. It does not have the card thing that allows for internet access, so naturally, I am not using that particular machine to communicate with you. I mention this because any solution that requires a download will need to be done through a laptop with a linux os and then transferred across with a usb stick.

The problem itself is that the cursor has a disturbing habit of flashing like a strobe light. When this occurs, the option box appears that you would see when you make a right mouse click. This option box also flashes like a strobe light. When this occurs I cannot do anything else on the laptop.

There is no logical pattern to this problem. It sometimes occurs at startup, sometime it develops during my computing experience and sometime not at all.

The operating system is windows xp.

Things I have tried to resolve this problem includes disk defragging, disk clean up and making hard drive space. To that end I have 49% of the harddrive free.

Unfortunately, I have reached the limits of my healing abilities and while searching for a solution, I have found this space.

If anybody is able, and feels inclined to offer any type of cure, I would be most grateful. And if anybody knows where I can get one (or two because there are two slots) of those internet card things that slot in the side, that would be nice, but the point of this interaction is to convince my laptop's cursor that it is a cursor and not a strobe light.

Thanking you in advance.

Admin note: Moved from R400/R500 forum to RAGZ.

[SafeHarbor]

Hi. I don't know if I'll be much help, but I do have an R52 with XP-Pro sitting right beside me. My suggestion for troubleshooting the blinking mouse cursor would be to start with the driver. You may have an interference between incompatible drivers.

First, is Windows indicating any hardware problems? Right-click My Computer and click Properties. Click the Hardware tab and click Device Manager. Under "Mice and Other Pointing Devices" you should see the Ultra-nav. Double-click that and get the properties window. On my R52, the driver is signed by "Synaptics" and dated 12/23/2011. The General tab should say, "This device is working properly."

If you have the same driver and date, next I'd try plugging in a USB mouse to see if that makes a difference. (The ultranav plugs into a PS/2 port inside the the case.)

The R-52, as far as I know, came standard with an Ethernet port on the left side. On mine, in order from the back, the ports are USB (2), S-Video, phone jack, Ethernet jack. I've never really had cause to use a PCMIA card on the machine, but you shouldn't need it to get it online.

Hopefully somebody else will have some better pointers. I've never seen the same problem you describe on a ThinkPad.

[IBM R-52 USER]

Thank you so much for your assistance.

I have followed your instructions until I reached the 'Mice and other pointing devices' section. Instead of seeing the 'ultra-nav', I have 'PS/2 Compatible Mouse'. When I right click into properties, it tells me that "This device is working properly. If you are having problems with this device, click Troubleshoot to start the troubleshooter." At present, I am unable to click this option so am waiting patiently for the computer to settle down a little. The driver is signed by "Microsoft Windows Publisher". The driver date is 1/07/2001. I have used a wired usb mouse and have experienced difficulties, but, cannot recall if the events are connected so, I shall conduct some experiments to discern this. I haven't tried using a wireless mouse, but, do not have access to one in the near future.

A couple of issues that may or may not be relevant.
1. When trouble is brewing the mouse will start behaving as if I am left mouse click/hold/moving
2. The three mouse buttons above the trackpad do not work at all.
3. The operating system appears to be "Last xp" rather than windows xp.

I was hoping that this was a 'run of the mill' type problem. The fact that you haven't seen this problem before is concerning, but the computer is decent enough when it isn't carrying on like a two-bob watch.

Cheers again for your help.

[IBM R-52 USER]

I have used a wired usb mouse and it makes absolutely no difference at all.

[Neil]

Could be a faulty keyboard. If you don't have another one to swap out, you might try removing it, and putting the same one back. Could be that the connector is not well seated, so re-seating the connector might just fix the problem. If that doesn't fix it, I would try to borrow, or obtain another keyboard (preferably a know good one) and see if that fixes the problem. Could also be a problem with the touch pad, so I would try disconnecting it and doing some experimenting.

The T43 I'm writing this one right now, has a bad touch pad connector that causes some serious misbehavior of the keyboard any time it's connected. So I've just been using it with the touch pad completely disconnected. Work fine this way. Of course, YMMV.

[IBM R-52 USER]

Thanks Neil for your advice on this situation. Do you know if there is a url that has a walk-through available for this job? I presume that I will need to unscrew the bottom of the computer and pull stuff out to access the keyboard or is there something that I can do to just pull it out from the top?

[twistero]

Before disassembling the machine, try disabling the trackpoint and touchpad in BIOS:

Turn on the computer. When you see the IBM logo, press F1 to enter BIOS setup.

(Here's a BIOS simulator for R52: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/researc ... MIGR-60969 The menu items should be the same, but in real BIOS you navigate with arrow and enter keys, not mouse.)

Go into Config --> Keyboard/Mouse, and set both "trackpoint" and "touchpad" to "disabled". Press F10 to save and exit, and use the computer with an external mouse.

If the problem goes away, then we know that either the trackpoint or touchpad is broken and causing the problem. Then, you can try going into BIOS again and setting them back to "automatic" one at a time. If the problem comes back after you enabled one of them, then that's where the problem is.