resending Re: mouse problems in 2.4.2 -> lost byte -> Patch(2.4.3)!]
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----- Forwarded message from Linas Vepstas <[email protected]>, [email protected] -----
Subject: Re: mouse problems in 2.4.2 -> lost byte -> Patch(2.4.3)!
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> "from Gunther Mayer at Apr 8, 2001
10:23:09 pm"
To: Gunther Mayer <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 22:18:10 -0500 (CDT)
From: Linas Vepstas <[email protected]>
CC: [email protected], [email protected],
Vojtech Pavlik <[email protected]>, [email protected]
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL87 (25)]
The 'mouse-lost-byte' saga continues:
Quoted 7 lines · It's been rumoured that Gunther Mayer
Original Problem: PS/2 mouse pointer goes upper right corner and stays there.
Diagnosis: one byte was lostLosing bytes on psaux is a bug!
We must first understand, how bytes can be lost (most probable first):
[...]
Quoted 4 lines
This patch printk's necessary information on the first 2 cases and should be applied to the stable kernel, as this will help to resolve a severe bug !
[ Attachment, skipping... ]
I now am having a terrible time reproducing the problem. Based on this, I nominate another possibility: race conditions involving APM/ACPI/bios.
Here's some more diagnostic info, as best as I can remember it:
Long ago (circa 2.3.99/2.4.0) I enabled APM/ACPI in the kernel, and in the bios, with the intent of auto-shutting off the monitor after a few hours. (This is a desktop machine, so no battery concerns, but I was feeling green, what with the cost of solar cells and all ...). This, coupled with XFree86-3.3 seemed to work fine, for a long time (months).
I think (don't quite remember) upgrading to 2.4.2 is when the mouse problems started. And also some screen-saver problems. Every now-and-then, it seemed I would move my mouse just as the screen-saver kicked in (at least thats what I think was happening). Screen would flash, X would freeze for half a second, some confusion, and back to normal. Or not: sometimes the pointer would fly up to top left, and do the 'lost byte' symptoms.
Don't know if this really was apm/acpi triggering this, but some freinds warned me of possible bad interactions, so I started shutting down apm/acpi. First in the kernel (one week), later in bios (another week).
This seemed to make matters worse. Towards the end, the screensaver
would kick in after a minute. And, very oddly, would kick in whenever I clicked on a netscape link (!really!).
After reviewing/fiddling my bios settings for apm for the umpteenth time I reported my 'missing mouse byte' problem to LKML. And ever since,
I've been unable to reproduce the problem. I am now trying to fiddle
with bios to turn APM back on (and also in the kernel), but so far, no luck in destabizing the kernel (and also, no luck in getting the monitor to auto-shutoff...)
--linas
----- End forwarded message -----
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Linas Vepstas -- [email protected] -- http://linas.org/