[wplug] mouse freaks out

[Rick Reynolds]

I've started having a problem on my Debian laptop where the 
mouse/keyboard will just get "reset" and the mouse always gets redefined 
as something it isn't, causing movements to be interpreted as mouse 
clicks, the pointer jerks around the screen, etc., etc.

I haven't found that any particular thing I'm doing precipitates it, but 
I do see this in the syslog:

Sep  2 07:34:58 gish kernel: atkbd.c: Spurious ACK on isa0060/serio0. 
Some program, like XFree86, might be trying access hardware directly.

When it occurs, I observe that the little keyboard LEDs all flash as if 
the keyboard is getting probed like what happens on boot up.  The 
keyboard seems to come back fine, but the mouse is unusable.  Restarting 
X has no effect (which makes sense as the above message is coming from 
the kernel).

Here are some specifics of my machine:

Dell D800 laptop running a decently recent update of Debian Etch.
Kernel is 2.6.15.
The keyboard and mouse in question are both PS/2.

Some other things that might be pertinent:

1. This only ever happens when the laptop is docked on the port 
replicator, with the PS/2 keyboard and mouse hooked up.  When it 
happens, the touchpad and eraserhead "mice" are also affected.

2. It seems to only ever happen after the laptop has been powered on for 
a while (like in the morning when the laptop has been on all night).  
This makes me think it might be a temperature issue.  This laptop has 
always seemed to run a bit hot (to my untrained "feel"), so I'm not sure 
if it is running hotter lately or not.

3. This only seems to happen when at home in my home office where the 
keyboard and mouse are both connected via a KVM.  I've been using this 
KVM for well over a year now with this laptop and never had any of the 
KVM issues that I've read about online.  It has always been able to 
switch flawlessly, etc.

4. This never seems to happen when I'm using this laptop at work.  At 
work I do have the same sort of setup with a port replicator, but the 
keyboard and mouse are both USB -- and no KVM at work at the moment.  I 
used to have a KVM at work which worked very well with this laptop at 
the time (no issues -- same as reported above).

5. This never seems to happen when I'm using the laptop away from my 
desk (i.e. on the couch, etc.).  Again, this could be pointing to a 
temperature issue as the airflow around the laptop is better in that 
situation.

6. I had to recompile my kernel recently (due to gcc getting updated), 
but I'm not sure that this started afterwards - it might have been 
happening before the recompile.

I've googled and googled about this, but I only seem to be finding 
people talking about issues with the 2.6.9 kernel, people needing to 
compile in different modules, people needing to change a BIOS setting, 
or other issues that don't seem relevant to my situation.  This only 
just started happening a couple of weeks ago, and I've been running 
under the same conditions and with the same level of kernel for months now.

I'm probably going to chase down the overheating angle by propping up 
the laptop when it is docked to get better airflow and see if the 
problem goes away.  But I was wondering if anyone on the list might be 
more savvy about this kind of thing than I am and might have other info 
or could point me towards another solution or debugging path.

Thanks,
Rick Reynolds
-- 
 Proper treatment will cure a cold in seven days, but left to itself, a 
cold will hang on for a week. -- Darrell Huff