Sleep mode issues: Wake on trackball

[crummy]

My computer does not seem to fully sleep when I choose to wake from mouse.

I enter device manager, select my mouse (actually a trackball) and hit properties. Under power management I check "Use this device to wake from sleep."
When this happens, the computer never seems to fully sleep - instead of fans spinning down and my marquee losing power, it just stops outputting to the screen and keeps humming. I can use the mouse to wake the computer (screen flickers back to life) - but sleep is pretty useless if the computer doesn't actually go to sleep.

If I disable wake from the mouse, then when I put the computer to sleep, everything actually spins down, there is no humming.

Can anyone offer an explanation for this? The mouse is connected via USB, but I've tried it with a USB>PS2 adapter.

[NOP]

hypothesis 1: the sensitivity of the USB trackball is so high that the humming of the computer itself is causing the sensors in the mouse to think someone is moving the trackball.

hypothesis  2: Since you're using USB to wake up, essentially that means that USB can never go to sleep itself. USB is controlled in the southbridge of the motherboard, so the southbridge also can never go to sleep.  Power management is also a part of the southbridge, and since it is in use, it never shuts down. 

hypothesis  3: BIOS bug.  Check for an update for your motherboard.

Does a real PS2 mouse do the same thing?

[crummy]

My keyboard is also connected via USB, and that stays on... so do the LEDs under my buttons (annoyingly). That's when the computer actually sleeps, I mean.

I checked for a BIOS update but it's a crappy HP refurb and there don't seem to be any available, unfortunately.

I suspected trackball sensitivity... do you think just turning the sensitivity down in windows will help at all? I guess there's no "dead zone" setting like there are with joysticks.

I'll test with a PS/2 mouse tomorrow.

[NOP]

> do you think just turning the sensitivity down in windows will help at all?
unfortunately, not likely. 

it's staying awake because interrupts are firing in the USB controller (or keyboard controller) and changing the sensitivity only makes windows ignore some of the movements, but the counters that get refreshed on every interrupt are still getting reset, so it stays awake.

It may also be that you have another device using the same interrupt as your USB controller, although now that I've said that, it doesn't make sense because you've tried it on the ps/2 connector as well.  I'm pretty out of ideas, so the only hope is that a true ps/2 mouse will at least change the behavior and give us some new insight.

-jeff!

[crummy]

A PS/2 mouse works fine No issues at all with it.

I tried the PS/2 adapter with the trackball again. It seems to be waiting for something from the trackball when I put the computer to sleep - if I pull the trackball cable out of the back of the computer when it's trying to sleep, the computer instantly sleeps.

[NOP]

now I guess you could try a normal USB mouse.  If it goes to sleep then, then it's the trackball and there's nothing you can do, but at least you know where the problem is.

If a normal USB mouse doesn't let it go to sleep either, then there is hope that it's still a configuration somewhere on the motherboard that might be tweakable to get it to work.

There's typically a lot of stuff that can be adjusted for power management, IRQs and all that which could make it better or worse.

-jeff!