trackball problem - ever see this?

[john_mame]

I'm finishing up wiring the controls in my cp.  
(large cabinet pic here http://thenote.com/a15.jpg)

I decided to test my trackball (imperial) on my desktop machine and got a hard stop while win2k was booting.

Pulled it out and it booted fine.  Tried it with the trackball again and got the hard stop BSOD.

I pulled the wires off the mouse/trackball buttons and win2k would boot, but no mouse action.

Any ideas, or do I just have a bad trackball?
I'm positive everything was wired correctly (before I pulled the button wires out)

[Hammerbot]

Sounds like you need to check the wires again.

How about a pic?

It may be worth the 5$ to re-hack (if that is even what you are doing) another working mouse. It may be easier that troubleshooting if you have already convinced yourself that it is set up right.

I found I had a problem with the PCB of the mouse getting pulled up when I installed mine last time. I had to scratch the PCB to get to the foil to jump over the broken connection.

It is always something.

Could you check the output of the trackball encoder somehow (Oscilliscope)?
What about metering the supply of the mouse and checking continuity on the board to make sure things are where they are supposed to be....

[john_mame]

The trackball has a ps2 out, so there isn't any hack involved.
It also has grounds and lines for 3 switches that split off from the ps2 cable for emulating a 3 button mouse.

Heres the best pic of it I have available.
You can see wires that all lead into the trackball casing.
http://www.thenote.com/a13.jpg

[_Iz-]

Make sure you're connecting the trackball button wires up to the correct locations on the arcade pushbuttons. Use the NO and ground, do not connect to the NC terminal. Do not chain any wires. Make sure you're using the correct pair of wires from the trackball to each button.

[seaner]

If your trackball is using the 5V output from the PS2 port, you might want to check that it isn't tryign to draw more current than your motherboard can source.  You could try a separate power supply.

[john_mame]

How could I check that?

[_Iz-]

He says his problems go away when he disconnects the buttons but leaves the trackball connected. This means his problem is not with the trackball or voltage drain, the problem is with the way the buttons are connected. He could have had them connected as a dead short, or as being pressed all the time (connected to NC on the microswitch).

If you follow the link he gave and look at the pic, it appears to be a imperial with a factory ps/2 connection and circuitry.

[john_mame]

found the problem.

one of the switches was faulty.
not sure why this would cause a hard stop in win2k though.

[_Iz-]

because it would appear to the system as a constant button press which windows or the driver can't handle (especially during device detection at boot)...