PS/2 vs USB mouse

I'll bump this as I'm a little leary of USB mice/keyboards. Actually, Can you still get a PS2 mouse/keyboard?

If you like to minimize your interrupts then use USB and disable PS2 port in BIOS. USB is a good thing when it comes to mice and keyboards (I'm not sure it is such a great idea for sound cards, that's why I use firewire JUST for sound).

It's unlikely it's a performance issue, more like a driver bug. Upgrade your chipset drivers , or perhaps your motherboards BIOS. If you've installed mouse software with a whole load of bells and whistles consider removing it.

I wonder what speed the USB on your motherboard is really if it has a PS/2 mouse port. That sounds very old to me. Do you think you have USB 2.0 ports but really they are USB 1.1? That definitely would cause some level of glitchiness.

Just guessing but it has definitely been a while since I saw a motherboard with a PS/2 port.

hows the new setup timidi >? gotta be awsom

buy A TRACKBALL

Just to repeat PS/2 ports just like printer ports (LPT1) and com ports (COM1) take up valuable Interrupts..... best disabled in BIOS and use USB if you can.

Do you think you have USB 2.0 ports but really they are USB 1.1? That definitely would cause some level of glitchiness.
I not exactly sure what this means, but no it shouldn't. Devices should either work or not. More likely chipset drivers or BIOS is the issue here (see previous post).... or mouse software.

Sorry guys,
Have been away for 24 hours. Got my DPC latency down to 6 microsecs after taking tips from this forum and a pc gaming fiend/friend - did that by disabling shedloads (HPET etc) in the bios.
The usb mouse is a ****ty little £3 from Asda (Walmart).

I am using USB 2 ports and move the interface and mouse around to see if that helps - but it doesn't.
I haven't loaded any drivers or software for the mouse - just legacy win xp ones.
I can easily get a new ps/2 mouse off ebay and might try that for now.
Might treat myself to a tracker ball for Xmas :-(
The motherboard is a 2 yr old Gigabyte GA-M720-US3  (AMD Phenom) with latest bios update.
Running 2 big monitors with all accelerations turned off for best performance.

Thanks to everyone for their kind help.

As far as USB vs PS/2 goes, it all depends on the motherboard; my recent build has an ASUS board that has all of the shared interrupts listed, and PS/2 devices are not among them, but USB ports are, so in my case I'm probably better off using a PS/2 mouse.

personaly performance wise.. for no issues ...ps2 !!

> has an ASUS board that has all of the shared interrupts listed, and PS/2 devices are not among them.

Look more carefully, or enable PS/2 port in your BIOS for it to be displayed. PS/2 WILL have an interrupt.
IRQ4 or IRQ 12. If you have COM ports disable them in BIOS as well (unless you are still using a 56K modem).
It is also possible you BIOS will autodisable the PS/2 port if nothing is plugged in initially (unusual but I have seen such a board).

Anyway far better to use a USB hub or buy another USB card than use a PS/2 mouse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS/2_connector

http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/IRQnumbers.asp

Yup I get you Guitslinger.... all good points... but...
Somebody may correct me but I believe USB works more like ethernet, i.e. it's a bandwidth thing, rather than the IRQ method of polling interrupts (a bit like the network token ring method), this makes USB far more efficient as it understands how to (in effect) prioritise the devices more efficiently. Of course the USB controller itself will have an IRQ but I'm talking about the devices attached to that.... from that one could conclude using a mouse/keyboard should take up a trivial amount of bandwidth...

My real view that is this is more desirable scenario than having an extra couple of interrupts being polled... and like I said, if you are concerned about multiple USB device attached to a controller, you can buy another USB card which would use just one interrupt... and then your sound card could run off that standalone (or keyboard or mouse or whatever).... just like a dedicated firewire card.... that's assuming you have a PCI slot spare.


> To avoid conflicts I chose firewire for my soundcard,
Me too good call. Plus USB can be a nightmare for sound cards in my view (as there are so many standards, not all of them implemented correctly)..
 

Yes you can still get a PS2 mouse and keyboard which I am ordering myself today. I was normalizing tracks after a 3 hour recording session and while that was working went clicking around with my mouse only to have the system freeze.  Needless to say I lost everything since I had to shut the program down!  My bad for not saving it first. :-( My feelings about using a USB mouse and keyboard is that I don't need anything interfering with the processing especially when you're dealing with 24 tracks simultaneously.

I'm still using a PS2 keyboard and mouse with ps2 adapter. Occasionally the mouse will freeze but that is due to the KVM more than a system board or mouse issue. I need to get a USB KVM but just don't want to let go of those $$$ to replace something that is working.