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6084
January 8th, 2004 17:00
Interference with wireless mouse?
Hi,
I just bought a nicely designed wireless optical mouse for my Inspiron 8200. "Nicely designed" because the mouse comes with a tiny USB receiver dongle which can be stored for transport in the mouse-body itself. And beeing stored in this way, the mouse's (battery-)power is turned off. Ideal for mobile use!
Now the bad part of the story:
The mouse freezes very often. Then I have to unplug the dongle and reconnect it to make the mouse work again. The reset-buttons on the mouse and receiver are of no help.
There seems to be an "external" reason or better say trigger: It looks like it has something to do with power-management. I thinks this, because mouse freezes at the same time when the screen saver is started or if my external firewire-HD goes asleep. But this is only the trigger or maybe sheer coincidence because...
When I use a USB extension cable (passive cable only) and such can position the receiver dongle somewhere else on my desk, the mouse works fine and without any problems. I even increased the distance receiver - mouse quite a lot and no harm.
So my next assumption is that it has something to do with *strange* radiation / interference coming out of my I8200. And that the USB connector is in a bad spot (for those who don't own that laptop: it is on the rear side on the left, so opposite to where I have the mouse).
My Inspiron has inbuild WLAN chip so may be this causes the trouble? Well I have disabled the WLAN ("radio off"), but maybe this only turns off the functionality and not the sender/antenna activities. On the other had WLAN is 2.4 GHz technique and mouse is 900 something MHz I think.
Well, it's really a pity, because apart of the above the mouse is really nice to have on mobile occasions. (For regular/daily work it is somewhat too small in my opinion).
Anyhow, in case someone is interested: http://www.labtec.com/index.cfm?page=gear/details&contentid=627&crid=29&countryid=1001&languageid=1
I know, that there are some alternatives, but some have receiver-boxes with attached cables, or at least much bigger dongles. And the bluetooth ones are expensive and are reported to work not this good (and I8200 has no inbuild bluetooth, so dongle again).
And, as you may guess, I appreciate any comments, suggestions etc...
...Ralf
DELL-BobT
3.1K Posts
0
January 8th, 2004 20:00
Ralf,
Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.
If your external mouse requires additional drivers, I would suspect that these drivers are conflicting with those for the touch-pad. You should remove the drivers for both pointing devices and then reinstall those for the pointing device that you wish to use.
Try these solutions:
Since the device is third-party, I can't really offer many more suggestions. You may want to contact the manufacturer of the mouse for additional ideas.
Ralf_K
7 Posts
0
January 8th, 2004 22:00
Thanks for the reply BobT,
I understand your suggestions but the driver pretty sure is NOT the problem. I know this because the mouse is running perfectly as long as I don't plug the USB receiver directly into the I8200 USB port but use a extension cord inbetween. And as I said in my original posting, it is not that I use the extension cord to bring the receiver closer to the mouse, it is just that I move it away from that very spot where the I8200 has its USB connector. Strange, isn't it?
...Ralf
DELL-BobT
3.1K Posts
0
January 9th, 2004 20:00
Ralf,
I suggest that you run the Dell diagnostic program on your computer to ensure that all of the components work properly. Place the System Software CD in your computer. Reset the machine and when the Dell logo appears on the screen, press and release [F2] several times until you are in the BIOS. Press the right arrow key to go to the BOOT menu or hold [Alt] and [P] simultaneously to progress to the second page. Change the boot sequence to CD/DVD drive, Floppy drive, Internal HDD. Now press [Esc] or [F10] to save and exit the BIOS.
The following knowledge base article can help you with this:
How to run the Dell diagnostic test knowledge base article.
The program should automatically load. Choose to run the test on the system motherboard. This will tell you if there is a problem with the port.
Ralf_K
7 Posts
0
January 12th, 2004 16:00
Thanks BobT
for trying to help me. But meanwhile I found the problem myself.
As I stated in a previous post, the mouse (and thus the software) is working perfectly if I use a simple USB extension cable instead of plugging it directly into the USB port of my I8200.
My first suspicion was, that in the area where the USB port is mounted there possibly is strong radiation of my inbuild truemobil WLAN adaptor which then interferes with radio signal of the wireless mouse. To test this I put the receiver dongle (which is still connected to the USB extension wire) in every position I could think of (even directly underneath the notebook). It worked flawlessly!
The only way to bring the mouse (better: the receiver) into malfunction is to plug it directly into the I8200. And when I examined this more closely, I found that the little receiver dongle, when plugged directly into the Dell's USB port, is getting rather warm, almost hot, because the inside of the I8200 is very hot (+ 45 Celsius, I assume from touching the notebooks bottom). And because the receiver dongle is build very small and the electronic is mounted very close to its metal USB connector, I assume that the temperature of the device is exceeding the maximum temperature it can withstand. Overheating, that's it!
...Ralf