Mouse, keyboard stops responding on xp

Of course, turn of sleep or hibernation settings, but does this link apply?

http://tinyurl.com/1ca6

The problem described in Q282195 is not exactly my problem. The system doesn't hang its keep on running fine. Only the mouse and keyboard stop functioning.
All running task and program?s (even playing mp3?s and downloading) continues

So thanks DKlippert, for the suggestion but it didn?t work for me

Well, let's start with the simple things first.

Swap a different keyboard and mouse to verify that it is not a device problem.
(I suspect that you will still have the problem)

Next, try running the PC with the case open, and see if it takes longer for the problem to show up.

If so, then you have 1 of the following:

1. A bad connection on the PS/2 connector.
2. A bad solder filet on the motherboard.
3. A bad PS/2 bus IC. (this function is lekely inside another IC, not a seperate IC)

You will need to get with Dell, and tell them that you have a thermal problem with the PS/2 port, and return the system for repair / replacement.

Chas

Keep it simple. Get a USB mouse and keyboard.

You could check in the bios if your COM ports and lpt (printer) are assigned automatic or preset.

Windows Xp on older pc can't really work well irq sharing and will sometimes mess things up.

All so you can try changing the boot.ini file (is a hidden file in the root of boot partion) remove the /fastdetect switch. Under windows 2000 this solved a similar problem as yours (see Q227991)

if the keyboard and mouse are USB and if you have USB 2.0 compliant connectors, you need to download the USB quickfix from the microsoft website that is for windows XP. it is a known issue that windows Xp does not work with USB2.0 that well.so Microsoft released this patch. so just make sure that if its USB2.0, then you need to get that fix :)

try going into safe mode to see if your mouse is responding if it does then it is a problem with the drivers.

Try resetting every jumper on the mobo. no. seriously. I had the same problem, but after resetting the jumpers my prepherials began working again.

Finally cracked the problem: It was the zipdrive connected to the lpt1 port. It has it's own power supply. The zipdrive puts current on the printer port before the computer was booted up. This created weird bios problems. Only Windows Up was sensitive about this. Turning the zipdrive on after the computer turned on solved the problem.

This question was closed by the author