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Recapped SE/30 has (eventual) slow mouse movement horizontally

Recapped an SE/30 a while back and the machine itself seemed fine (although I didn't use it too much). I pulled it back out to mess around with 68k development, and have ran into an issue where, after a few minutes, the horizontal movement on the mouse is _extremely_ slow. I can move the mouse up and down just fine, but left and right _barely_ moves.

A restart doesn't fix it. Turning the machine off, waiting, and then turning it back on fixes the issue, temporarily. I'm guessing there's a trace cut somewhere that, when heated, is no longer making contact? Has anyone ever run into this before?

(Oh and I checked the inside of the mouse itself and didn't see any dirt on the rollers).
 

Phipli

Well-known member
I've seen similar when I was having trouble with the sound circuit on an LC 475. I think something was triggering a huge number of interrupts and preventing the computer from serving the mouse movement, but that is just guessing rather than based on any good solid evidence. Try unplugging the floppy drive, and see if it works ok then. If it doesn't, try unplugging the hard disk and see if it works OK from a floppy disk. I'm not saying that it is one of those things, but they can be unplugged, so is an easy starting point?
 

ArmorAlley

Well-known member
That sounds like a problem with the mouse, rather than a problem with the SE/30.
The machine receives ADB data from the mouse.
If it is the machine, then all ADB devices should be impaired for here is no mouse-specific port on the SE/30.
What happens when you use another mouse?
Also, the SE/30 has 2x ADB ports.
Do you get the same results from both ports?
 
I think something was triggering a huge number of interrupts and preventing the computer from serving the mouse movement, but that is just guessing rather than based on any good solid evidence.
I am pretty sure the hard drive is on its way out. From a cold boot, sometimes I hear the hard drive make a "chunk" noise on startup and then I see the floppy icon asking for a boot disk. If I quickly restart, it usually boots. Possibly a failing drive could behave like you describe?

Seems like a good test tonight will be to boot from floppy with the drive unplugged and see if anything changes. Hopefully there's a simple 1.4M boot disk for System 6 out there somewhere that I can write with dd, as I've been completely unable to write anything else to a floppy.

What happens when you use another mouse?
Also, the SE/30 has 2x ADB ports.
Do you get the same results from both ports?

I don't have another mouse to test (and have no idea where to get one, sadly). However I totally forgot that there's two ports - will try the other port tonight and see if I can get similar behavior.

Thank you both for the excellent suggestions!
 

Phipli

Well-known member
Hopefully there's a simple 1.4M boot disk for System 6 out there somewhere that I can write with dd, as I've been completely unable to write anything else to a floppy.
I don't think this won't work - you won't get a bootable disk like this.
 

stepleton

Well-known member
Does the keyboard still work all right?

Keyboard and mouse failures in my Mac Classic turned out to be caused by a failing 6522 I/O chip. Here's some detail.

You might investigate this possibility if other remedies fail.
 
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