Somnolent mouse

[equill]

I bought a good clean G4/466MHz DA from a reputable dealer, and successfully tricked it out with an AGP Radeon 7500 so that the Mac could drive a 20-in ADC Cinema Display. I also added a 6-port PCI-X USB 2.0 (NEC) card, 1GB of RAM and a Sonnet Tempo ATA-66 PATA PCI card. Nice, responsive, and no surprises.

Next step was to replace the 533MHz card with a 733MHz card. Still nice, responsive and no surprises but one. Now the USB Pro Mouse (through a Macally iKey keyboard) takes 15sec or so longer to wake after the Mac itself wakens from sleep.

Theories? Conspiracies? Knowledge, even? All welcome, please.

de

Correction of Radeon card's number.

 

[TheNeil]

It's the ying-yang balance. You sped up the rest of the machine so to keep the machine in balance, the mouse has to go slowly. If it didn't then it would end up getting faster and faster, eventually breaking the speed of light and traveling in time. This of course would have the unfortunate side-effect of having it disappear from your desk.

In short, it's a defensive measure coded into the OS by Apple to stop their machines from disappearing into swirly-whirly time-hole things. M$ tried something similar with Vista but got the balance wrong

 

[tomlee59]

Theories? Conspiracies? Knowledge, even? All welcome, please.

de

No knowledge, unfortunately, only commiseration. My iMac G4 has precisely the same behavior (and has had it as long as I've owned it). I'd just grown to accept it as an, er, endearing quirk, but your (and TheNeil's) post gives me some hope that a ying-yang rebalancing might improve things...

 

[equill]

It's the ying-yang balance ...

... a ying-yang rebalancing might improve things...

Thank you, both. But you stopped short of writing whether the rebalance should be on the rounded edges or the pointy bits?

de

 

[porter]

Now the USB Pro Mouse takes 15sec or so longer to wake after the Mac itself wakens from sleep.

Its not dead, its resting.

Pining for the fjords.

 

[equill]

That could have been true in my parents' house, given that the business that my father managed had been presented in 1950 with a plaque recognizing its then 25-year franchise as a Fjord dealer. However, there have been (since I stepped out of my 1928 Essex tourer) only Holdens in my household. My Macs will be wise to subscribe to the same brand-loyalty.

de

 

[TheNeil]

It's the ying-yang balance ...

... a ying-yang rebalancing might improve things...

Thank you, both. But you stopped short of writing whether the rebalance should be on the rounded edges or the pointy bits?

de

To quote the license agreement "Re-balancing should only be attempted by qualified Apple service technicians". Having seen a re-balancing being performed, it involved something to do with sea-shells and the ritual sacrificing of ADB mice. It was all very strange

 

[register]

I noticed a similar behaviour (mouse not responsive for some ten seconds) with a Mac Mini PPC. The extended wakeup duration seems to take a different amount of time, each time. I assume it involves waiting for several other peripherals, like USB memory sticks, external harddisk drives or re-establishing the network connection. Rebalancing might be a good choice, however.

 

[Bunsen]

Is there any noticeable difference with the mouse connected directly to the Mac, space (and time) permitting?

 

[Christopher]

You guys better be joking.

 

[Temetka]

Why would we joke?

This is a serious matter. A classic mac could be sick.

Geez man get with it. [] ]'>

 

[equill]

Is there any noticeable difference with the mouse connected directly to the Mac, space (and time) permitting?

Not any one of connecting the mouse to the DA directly (on-board USB), USB 2 PCI-X card, hub in the 20-in Cinema Display or the other port in the Macally keyboard has made a difference in the behaviour.

I have had me doots aboot the keyboard, in that its left-hand USB port has not recognized/powered up a SanDisk Cruzer thumb drive, but the mouse works in either port despite that it takes the 15sec to go through the Sylvester-like 'Wrack-sploot-zzz ... Is someone calling I?' at wakeup.

de

 

[dbraverman88]

I have a G4/733. (768 MB RAM, original superdrive, 10 GB HDD (OS 9.2.2), 120 GB HDD (OS 10.4.11), NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 32MB, 17" Samsung SyncMaster 730B, USB Apple keyboard (dated 1999), an Apple Pro mouse, and a Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000). I have had both mice connected to the keyboard USB ports with no ill effects. In fact, both work at the same time. I could, if I so desired, take a two-handed approach to my mac (interesting thought ...).

I have not seen the behavior you describe with either OS.

Have you tried an exorcism?

--David

 

[Bunsen]

If you have any leftover rubber chickens from SCSI voodoo rituals, perhaps you could sacrifice one to the USB gods.

 

[equill]

Although Macally seems not to allow the name of the iKey4 to cross its lips any more, I found a generalized FAQ page about iKey keyboards.

The mouse freeze issue is related to timing implementation between the host Mac CPU, the keyboard/hub and the mouse during the sleep/wake-up sequence. Clicking the mouse will wake up the keyboard/hub and the host Mac CPU. In response, the Mac CPU will acknowledge that the keyboard/hub is awake, but never acknowledges the mouse. The mouse continues to stay in the sleep mode and appears to be frozen.
As workaround, please wake your system by using the keyboard only. If by accident you click the mouse while the system is in sleep, please unplug the mouse from the keyboard and re-plug it.

The recommended workaround is not effective for me, using an Apple optical mouse, but the fault is not a freeze but a delay in waking. The workaround may be effective for a compatible Macally mouse, but not for the Mac Pro.

Another oddity is that the iKey's keyboard hub has ample power available for the mouse from either USB port, but will not power/recognize a SanDisk Cruzer Titanium 1GB thumb drive, whether or not the mouse is also attached. One blink of the Cruzer's LED is followed by absolutely nowt. Nowhere on the iKey's original box is there a statement about the power available from the keyboard hub, but it is at least odd that there seems not to be enough for a thumb drive.

de

 

[Morrick]

Out of curiosity, does the mouse issue persist if you remove the 6-port PCI-X USB 2.0 NEC card?

Cheers,

Rick

 

[equill]

The USB 2.0 card was present during the Mac's month-long existence as a 533MHz machine, with no untoward behaviour evident. But your thought had also crossed my mind as an avenue of investigation, albeit a reluctant one. I have keyboard and USB soundcard in the built-in USB 1.1 ports, but printer and various comers-and-goers are attached at the USB card. USB for the hub in the ADC display (which is my obligatory alternative for the thumb drive since the DA itself is under my desk) is through the ADC port on the Radeon 7500.

Macally's USB2EHCI_v3_1_2.sit software did not make any difference, but neither did it cause the interference with the Apple USB2 .kext (so far) in 10.4.11 that Macally warns about. I believe that the USB2 PCI-X card is supposed to be plug-and-play with Apple's .kext, anyway, but at the next opening of the DA I shall remove it and see what transpires.

de

 

[equill]

A small update, in that removal of the USB card effected nothing but removal of the USB card, so back in it went for my printer's sake. However, in the frew-ing and toe-ing brought about by my ill-conceived installation of a partitioned WD 500GB hard drive into the DA, and the painful recovery therefrom, there ensued an unrelated (causally) series of events with perhaps some unexplainable significance.

As the result of a lurgie-induced cough while I had a mouthful of coffee and an eyeful of the ADC display, the Macally keyboard was bathed in goofee. Its sensible construction saved it from the well-known coffee-in-the-innards fate, but I substituted the Macally kbd with a Mac Pro kbd while the Macally was being undressed and bathed. The Mac Pro mouse wakes from the Mac's sleep in 6sec rather than 15sec. Later today I shall see whether the revivified Macally can now do as well as, or worse than, before. The present expansion drives in the DA (a couple of Seagate 40GBs) hang off a Sonnet ATA-100 card because (in the age of SATA this, and SATA that) I can find no ATA-133 card (and its >128MB HDD immunity) anywhere, neither locally nor OS.

And, mirabile dictu, the SanDisk Cruzer runs very nicely from the Mac Pro kbd's second USB hub.

de