RE: [TCLUG:4769] mouse/HDD noise

[Peter Lukas <peter@math.umn.edu>]

Chances are that the mouse is interfering with the sound card.  If there's
a sound card on board, this can sometimes happen.  Everytime the mouse is
moved, it'll sound like the hard drive is chewing.

cat /proc/interrupts
cat /proc/ioports

and check for conflicting mouse/sound devices.  If you still can't resolve
it, move the mouse to the serial port.  (Most mice have a ps/2 to serial
converter.  You can pick them up at a computer parts store for a few
bucks.

Peter Lukas

On Mon, 15 Mar 1999, Eric Hillman wrote:

> > She's been running RedHat Linux 5.2 and Windows 95 in a dual-boot
> > configuration on a Pentium system for about 2 months.  Recently she needed
> > to make available a serial port, so she removed the serial port adapter
> > from her Logitech MouseMan trackball, and plugged the trackball into the
> > PS/2 port on the motherboard.
> >
> > Now when she uses Windows, everything's okay.  But when she uses Linux,
> > whether in X or at the console with gpm, she hears a noise when she moves
> > the mouse.  After removing the cover from her PC and putting her ear near
> > its innards, she's determined that the noise is not coming from the
> > internal modem speaker or the PC speaker.  It seems to be coming from the
> > the hard drives.
> >
> > Any ideas?
> 
> 	My first guess would be that the mouse driver is corrupted, or you're
> running the wrong one, or the system is underpowered or overworked, or that
> for some other reason, using the mouse is causing Linux to suddenly start
> swapping to disk.  The sound you hear is common on machines straining under
> a very heavy load, both Linux and Windows.
> 
> 	You could confirm this by running 'top' (or 'top -q' to run top with no
> delay between refreshes) in an xterm window or on your desktop, and then
> moving the mouse to see if swap usage spikes.
> 
> 	You might also want to look for hog processes in top.  'man top' will give
> you a list of the commands you can use to make this easier.  Note that it is
> normal for some processes, like apache httpd, to grab as much physical
> memory as they possibly can -- they're supposed to scale back when the
> system starts swapping to disk.  However, if you're not using these
> services, you may want to disable them.
> 
> 	There's a 'mouse-test' program that might help reconfigure your mouse.  It
> is, however, possible that your kernel doesn't have decent support of the
> PS/2 port, in which case a recompile might be necessary, or a module may
> need to be installed...  You might want to examine /var/log/dmesg (a record
> of your last bootup) to see if you can see anything out of the ordinary
> regarding the PS/2 port.
> 
> 
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