OFB Community Mailing Lists

[Frank Bax]

At the non-profit where I provide all the IT support, I've come across a 
wierd problem.  We got a dozen used IBM 300PL systems (P3-500) and deployed 
them with Win98SE.  Units went into group homes run by the agency to be 
used by staff.  At one home, after only a few minutes of using OpenOffice 
(calc) any movement of the mouse would cause erratic behaviour such as 
opening new windows, attempting to close others, scrolling to new areas of 
spreadsheet etc.  I asked for the machine to be returned to my office for 
analysis.  It worked flawlessly and was sent back where it immediately 
acted up again.  We tried several different mice and no change.  Then I 
found out the case was sitting on top if a mini refrigerator, so that was 
moved to other side of the room.  Still no change.  The machine came back 
to my office and I moved the hard drive into another case.  Staff report 
that frequency of problem seems to be slightly reduced, but still a big 
problem.  A friend mentioned that he had seen EM interference cause 
problems if any expansion slots were left open; and his system worked 
flawless when all holes in case were closed.  I visited the house and there 
were no "holes" in the case.  Only case, monitor, desk lamp and radio 
plugged into (surge suppression) power bar.  We plugged the monitor 
directly into the wall outlet and unplugged the lamp and radio.  Mouse is 
still erratic.  Any ideas?

Frank