mouse freeze

[Karen]

My Intellimouse Optical is intermittently freezing, no matter what I am doing... Photoshop Elements or just surfing the web. There is a CD icon appearing right beside it when it happens, and the CD burner light is blinking as if to indicate that there is a disc in the drive and it is active ...but there is no disc in there and I am not using it. It is annoying and terribly interruptive. What could cause this? I have Win XP Pro if that matters, with 768 RAM and AMD Athlon 750.

[Gus K]

Have you tried another mouse? Is your burner a Liite-on?

[Karen]

Hi Gus. Thanks for your reply. At the risk of sounding like an idiot, is IDE an actual name? That is what it says on the Belarc Advisor Report and also on the printout from Gateway, from whence my system came. It says IDE-CD R/RW 8x4x32. And no, I haven't tried another mouse. And for what it's worth... it hasn't happened in the past hour or so since I posted the Q. Isn't that the way it always goes? I opened and closed that thing at least a dozen times... fighting hard against my urge to kick it... and I don't know if that did anything or not.

[Marsden11]

There may be a process looking for media in that drive. It looks and your systems stalls while it searches. When it is through looking, your mouse goes back to normal focus.It could be many things.A program in your tray area.A poorly written program.Can you list all the processes that are shown in Task Manager under the Process Tab?

[Gus K]

is IDE an actual name?

I doubt it. You could try just unplugging/replugging the mouse. In cases like this it's always best to know if the hardware has failed before delving into the wonders of Windows.

[Grasshopper]

I had a Plextor burner do this. Mine did this because of a power brown out I think.The light on the CD drive was blinking and it was causing the cursor to blink and ever other process slowed down dramatically. I had to replace the drive. It was broke because of the power problem.

[Karen]

31 Processes CPU Usage: 1%-3% as I am copying this stuffHPOIPMO7.EXEAdService.exeUPS.exeSVCHOST.EXENAVAPSVC.EXEAppServices.exeMSIMN.EXEHPOEVM07.EXEHPOAVN07.EXEImgicon.exeAdUserMon.exeTYPE32.EXEtaskmgr.exePOINT32.EXENAVAPW32.EXEEXPLORER32.EXEIEXPLORE.EXESPOOLSV.EXESVCHOST.EXESVCHOST.EXESVCHOST.EXESVCHOST.EXELSASS.EXESERVICES.EXEWINLOGON.EXECSRSS.EXEhpOFXM07.exeSMSS.EXEhpOSTS07.exeSystemSystem Idle Process SYSTEM

A program in your tray area.

What does that mean, Marsden? tbird, I have a UPS to deal with brown outs and surges... so I wouldn't think that could be the cause.That fool thing is blinking all the while I'm typing indicating "Disc in .. active" but the mouse is working fine. I have noticed that when the mouse freezes, the light under "writing" also blinks. While it is blinking, as now, I cannot open it. Yesterday, during one of the pauses between blinking and non-blinking, I opened the tray and left it open to see if that would "let go of" my mouse. Not sure if it did or not, but after a few minutes, it closed itself.

[zox]

I am not windows expert but what are these if anyone knows?-HPOIPMO7.EXE-HPOEVM07.EXE-HPOAVN07.EXE-hpOFXM07.exe-hpOSTS07.exe :blink:By the way hi karen, love your avatar

[Karen]

Hi Zox. Those are all having to do with my Hewlett-Packard OfficeJet G85 series all-in-one. Printer, Fax, Copier, Scanner.Glad you like her... and thank you for the reply.

[nlinecomputers]

I would figure there are two possible problems either a hardware problem with the drive itself(unlikely) or some program is trying to access the drive.If you goto Start and hit Run... and type msconfig a program will open that will allow you to see what programs are loading on startup. Under the startup tab is a list of most of the items that load on startup. Purely as a diagnostic test I would turn off all the items in the startup group and see if that solves your problem. You can then enable them one by one or in small groups and see if that recreates your problem.

[zlim]

Go here http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pa.../tasklist_a.htmhe suggests that you disable Adservice.exe, AdUserMon.exe, and AppServices.exe those are all installed with Iomega Active Disk which seems to be dead.Also when I was looking up what Point32.exe was, I found that there might be a newer version of Intellipoint software.I found this on the "h" page of the above link1. (Hewlett-Packard) Background HP Image Editor task installed by the drivers for the HP OfficeJet K60 & G85 (hpoevm07) and HP PSC 2100 & 2200 (hpoevm08) series of multifunction printers.Recommendation : This task is bad press for HP. Almost all Windows 2000/XP users who install an HP PSC 2100 or 2200 series printer immediately complain of their PCs having become extremely slow and of "HPOEVM07.exe is not responding" or "HPOEVM08.exe is not responding" errors on shutdown. HP have issued a fix for it for HPOEVM08 which, strangely enough, is actually on the CD that your printer comes with, but it does not get installed automatically (that’s plain silly!). To install the fix drill down to the Util\CCC\ImageEditor folder on the software CD and copy the file HPQVWR08.EXE from that CD folder to the following folder on your C: drive : "C: \ Program Files \ Hewlett-Packard \ Digital Imaging \ Bin". Then reboot.2. HP OfficeJet Status Monitor task for HP’s multifunction printers (OfficeJets). This background task is loaded by the drivers for the HP OfficeJet K series, G series, V40, and PSC 700 series (HPOSTS07) and OfficeJet PSC 2100 & 2200 series (HPOSTS08). This task shows as an OfficeJet icon in your System Tray and you can right-click or double-click on it to get information about what your printer is doing, or ink cartridge levels, etc...Recommendation : While we have little experience of HPOSTS08, there is nothing good we can say about HPOSTS07 and the whole "07" class of OfficeJet drivers. Inability to properly shut down your PC, excessive consumption of CPU resources, or "Not responding" problems are the main issues with this HPOSTS07. If you experience such problems, first see if there are newer drivers available. If you already have the latest drivers, then disable HPOSTS07 with Starter – you will be missing the System Tray status icon but at least you should find that you can now shutdown normally !Everything else listed that I found info about seems to be ok. (I couldn't find anything on HPOIPMO7, HPOAVNO7, or hpOFXMO7).

[Karen]

Hi zlim. What a load of info on Answers That Work... which is now in my favorites. Thank you for that. Today my mouse was working perfectly. The CD burner was blinking continuously indicating Disk In/Active... but not indicating "Writing" as it was yesterday when the mouse kept freezing. A friend suggested that I uninstall my burner in Device Manager then reboot to let Windows re-install it. Was going to do that, but it was not even showing in DM... only my standard CD-ROM! Had to shut down and go out for a while this evening. Now on reboot, the burner light is not on nor blinking, mouse is fine, and burner is present and accounted for in Device Manager. Wassup with that? So right now, I am going to let it be.However, with my list of proggies in hand, I am going to study the task list at Answers... I find that most interesting and will likely disable a few things as a result of that list of info.

[nlinecomputers]

Karen,It now sounds like a hardware issue if the drive was blinking and not showing up in device manager. Did you during this ever fully power down this system? Not a reboot but kill all power. The drive might have been locked up.

[Karen]

Ok,nlinecomputers. I miss-typed. I should have said that when I came home last night and turned on the PC (instead of reboot ... since I had powered down/turned off the PC when I left) all appeared to be OK. Now that falls right in line with your thoughts about hardware problem ... burner being locked up. Anything in particular cause that? Is turning off and on again the primary way to deal with that? Is there a way to open a CD burner when light is blinking and push button won't work? Like the paperclip thing opens a regular CD-ROM?Today all remains well here... no blinking lights, and it shows up where it should in DM. Thanks again for your continuing input.

[nlinecomputers]

It should have the paperclip hole that most every kind of cd/dvd drive has. The lockup could be a random thing or a sign of a dying drive or even a dying motherboard. When you suspect hardware problems you should allways try a full power down. All sort of things can cause hardware to lockup.

[Karen]

Hi again. Here's something new to add to this. Based on a suggestion, I looked at the System Event Viewer. Nothing today. But starting back on the 10th when I first started noticing my mouse probs... took me a few days to realize that the burner was blinking... not too observant I guess........ there have been many errors. On Sunday the 14th there were 57 of them ... all atapi.. which I now know is related somehow. There were 15 of those atapi errors on the 13th, and 79 of them on the 12th. What should this info be telling me? One of my books mentions controllers... whatever they are... for CD-Rom drive. Does that mean standard CD and CDR-RW alike? What do I do with this info? As I said nada for today... and all is calm with mouse and burner lights.

[nlinecomputers]

What are the error messages? If you open event viewer and click on a event a box opens. Below the two arrows is a button that looks like a printed page. Clicking on that will paste the error into the clipboard which you can then paste here for us to read.Atapi is the hardware standard used for all IDE(Intergrated Drive Electronics) drives such as hard drives, zip drives and CD/CD-R/DVD drives. The errors just confirms the obvious that Windows was trying to access your drive while it was locked up. It proves that your drive was out to lunch and the exact error message might tell us why.The controller is built into the motherboard and it is what lets your motherboard talk to your hard drives and CD rom drives. A bad controller could be the cause of this but I personally think it is a locked up drive. A problem that is now corrrected by powering down the system. Personally I don't think you'll see this again. But you can't be sure till you run for a few days.What happends if you try to use the CD Rom drive?

[Karen]

Hi again. In the Event Viewer … no errors today, nor Tuesday. There were three errors on Monday. They were:Event Type: ErrorEvent Source: Removable Storage ServiceEvent Category: NoneEvent ID: 15Date: 9/15/2003Time: 2:36:02 PMUser: N/AComputer: COMPUTERDescription:RSM cannot manage library PhysicalDrive2. The database is corrupt. ( Same error repeated for PhysicalDrive3 and 4) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~On the 14th, of the 57 atapi errors, 55 of them were:Event Type: ErrorEvent Source: atapiEvent Category: NoneEvent ID: 9Date: 9/14/2003Time: 9:16:49 PMUser: N/AComputer: COMPUTERDescription:The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort1, did not respond within the timeout period.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The other 2 were:Event Type: ErrorEvent Source: atapiEvent Category: NoneEvent ID: 15Date: 9/14/2003Time: 8:10:11 PMUser: N/AComputer: COMPUTERDescription:The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort1, is not ready for access yet.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~There were 2 Cdrom errors immediately following the “not ready†errors like this:Event Type: ErrorEvent Source: CdromEvent Category: NoneEvent ID: 11Date: 9/14/2003Time: 8:10:11 PMUser: N/AComputer: COMPUTERDescription:The driver detected a controller error on \Device\CdRom1.Ok, Nathan.... what are your thoughts at this point? It seems to have corrected itself, but it sure has generated an awful lot of errors in doing so. In the Event Viewer, I saw that those same errors were being logged for a long time. The first atapi error (only one) was logged on 8/11, the day I got the Blaster! Some days since then there have been many logged, some days not, but much company in the interim and the number of error entries is probably linked to the hours spent or not spent sitting here.Oh yucck! I just re-read your last note. Put a CD in the CD-ROM and it played immediately. Perfect. I put that CD in the CDR-RW and WMP just sat there looking dumb. Took it out and put it in several times and it would not play from the burner. Nor would it play by going at it from My Computer and RIGHT clicking the drive and choosing play. Event Viewer now shows 12 of the Event 9 atapi timeout errors. Dang!

[nlinecomputers]

I'd say you have a bad CD-RW drive. It could also be a bad controller, a bad cable, or misjumpered drives. If you can replace the cable I would do so. Then retest it. I'm assuming that both CD drives are connected to the same data cable. I'd retry this test after I temporarly remove the cable from the working drive.

[Karen]

Thank you, Nathan. You're super with your answers, but now you've gone over my head... totally. I don't know about replacing or removing cables... temporarily or otherwise. I have never done that. The only thing I have done inside the case is replace and add memory. How does a CDRW that has been here and operational for 3 years since I got this system from Gateway develop misjumpered drives? And can controllers and cables just up and go bad? I'll have to do some hunting for explicit directions for doing what you suggest. My first impulse is to remove it through Device Manager, and then go buy an external CD/DVD R-RW with more bells and whistles than this 3-yr old model that I have. Is that possible to do without poking around inside the case.... and just leave it in there plugging the hole it is in?

[nlinecomputers]

How does a CDRW that has been here and operational for 3 years since I got this system from Gateway develop misjumpered drives? And can controllers and cables just up and go bad?

Do your tires on your car last forever, do lightbulbs, your washer and dryer or anything else last forever. Nope. They wear out. So did your CD-RW. If the CD-RW is bad you need to get that thing out of your system. Even disabled in Windows it may still cause a problem for the hardware. If I were going to replace your CD-RW I'd replace it with another internal drive. They are not hard to install.A jumper is a small wire encased in plastic that is used to "jump" two wire pins together. They are used to hard set values and switches in computer hardware. You may have heard the terms Master/Slave? An IDE ribbon cable can connect two drives. One is called the Master the other is called the slave. In the picture below the top CD rom is Master and bottom one is slave. The hard drive is on a cable by itself but you could put a slave drive on it.This image probably is how your system is setup.A jumper on the hard drive or CD-ROM is set to mark the device as master or slave. If the jumper falls off then a signal problem can occur and might be the cause of your problems.How can it fall off? Simple. A computer produces heat. As heat builds the parts expand. As they cool they contract. This constant change in size will cause cables, chips, and even jumpers to wiggle out of the sockets they are pluged into.Most likely I'd bet that the drive has just worn out and needs replacement. But I'd open the case and try to reseat the cables first. If you need to replace the drive you can open your case remove the power cable, the flat ribbon cable(data), and the small sound cable(if pressent). You remove 2 to 4 screws that hold the drive in or perhaps none if it slides on rails. You check the jumper on the back of the drive to see if it is set for MASter, SLAve, or Cable Select. Get the new drive out and make the jumper match what the old one was set for and reverse the steps you took to remove it. After that everything should work as before except with a better drive. Assuming that the drive is the problem and you don't have a bad controller on the motherboard.

[Karen]

Oh my goodness. Your explanation and pics make me almost feel like I could do that without a whole lot of hyperventilating!! And I just may try it. Gotta do a little bit more reading about it first before I take that plunge. Thank you so much, Nathan. Does it matter what brand, speed, etc CDR-RW or DVDR I get? What do I need to know about this system before I go shopping... as far as compatibility goes? Anything?

[Gus K]

A friend bought this combo drive and is very pleased (so far).http://www.lgeus.com/Product/CD/GCC_4480B.aspDecent price too.http://www.newegg.com/app/Viewproduct.asp?...GCC-4480B%20(I)

[Karen]

Thanks, Gus. I was just looking at some options here at PCWorld. How-To for CDR-RW/ DVD I will check your links as well. I do like the combo drive option very much.

[nlinecomputers]

As for brands. I've used many from AOPEN with out any problems. If you find a brand locally do a google search on it. You've allways find somebody that says _____________ sucks don't buy it. But as long as you don't see alot of such reports you'll figure out if what your looking at is worth your time. Tom's Hardware Page is also good for reviews, if a bit technical. For the most part the faster the CD-RW drive the better as long as the blank media is good enough to burn well on the drive. Cheap media will give you alot of costers.If your looking at DVD burners then it gets very complicated. There are several formats DVD-R,DVD-RW,DVD+R,DVD+RW, and for data only(no video formats) you have DVD-RAM. You have to have the correct media for the correct burner and one drive will only read some of the media types while another will only read the others. Sony makes a good series of drives that read all 4 of the Video DVD formats.

[Karen]

Hi Gus and Nathan... Today I replaced my CD-RW with a Sony CRX300A. Whew! So far I guess it is OK. That's why my avatar is dancing so happily tonight!! Thank you so much for the guidance and encouragement with this. The Event Viewer has nothing red showing up in there tonight... hubba hubba. I read in one of my magazines that "the most advanced drive should always be the master drive. So if you have a recordable drive and a read-only drive, the recordable drive should be set as the master." Do you agree with that? The burner that I took out was set as slave, so I set the new replacement one as slave, but I am now wondering about this. In my system, the CD-ROM is at the top of my tower, and the burner is below it. A different source from the one already mentioned, said that the first one on the cable, furthest from the motherboard should be the master and the middle one should be the slave. It said nothing about "most advanced." So anyway, my CD-ROM is master and the burner is slave.Any thoughts on this point?

[nlinecomputers]

I read in one of my magazines that "the most advanced drive should always be the master drive.

That statement would be more important when talking about hard drives. Your boot drive, the one your OS lives on, should be the most advanced drive in the system. So that your OS can take advantage of it's assumed greater speed and storage space.I can't see that it matters with a pair of CD-rom drives.

[Karen]

Ok Nathan... thanks for that. Another question: I read that newer data cables usually or sometimes have 80 wires even though they still maintain the 40-pin connector.... and that using an 80-wire cable will promote faster transmission. Is that true? The new Sony burner box included a new data cable. I didn't use it because I didn't want to fiddle with disconnecting it in two more places than absolutely necessary. Now I am wondering if I should have used the new data cable just because it is new, even though the old one wasn't bad. Also, how can one tell if the data cable has 40 or 80 wires? Is this bit of info just overkill? Thanks again for coming back to this post. I must tell you that after all the reading I've done since last week in my local Barnes & Noble, I am much less intimidated by the inside of the case than I was when you first told me to go in there and reset the jumper and swap the data cable connections and then replace the burner. I also have a greater sense of satisfaction for doing it myself than taking it to a local shop and paying them an hourly rate for what did, in fact, turn out to be a simple task.... just as you said it would be! Karen

[nlinecomputers]

The 80 pin cable is only for hard drives. Your system MIGHT be new enough to have one for the hard drive. If you look at the hard drive cable and compare it to the cable on the CD-ROMs you see that one has 40 wires and the other has 80. The ribbon cables have 40 or 80 wires laid down side by side running parallel to each other. You can see them and feel them inside the plastic ribbon.The cable that shipped with your CD-Rom was 40.

Thanks again for coming back to this post. I must tell you that after all the reading I've done since last week in my local Barnes & Noble, I am much less intimidated by the inside of the case than I was when you first told me to go in there and reset the jumper and swap the data cable connections and then replace the burner. I also have a greater sense of satisfaction for doing it myself than taking it to a local shop and paying them an hourly rate for what did, in fact, turn out to be a simple task.... just as you said it would be!

Thanks we'll make you into a tech yet. Now we just have to get you to bathe less often, drink large amounts of caffine, and sit and work on your computer playing games at all hours of the morning....Well maybe not.

[Karen]

I'm going for a shower right now.... and save the tech stuff for my next life. Karen