Patrick’s Rants

When my partner called me the other day to tell me that his computer stopped working, I thought that he was pulling my leg. Essentially the computer was working, there was a static electricity discharge and the computer rebooted. After that he was no longer able to log in. He tried moving it to my office and it worked just fine. He moved my machine to his office and it didn’t work again. It was a bizzare computer failure that I couldn’t figure out over the phone.
Today I went into the office to set my mind at ease, and figure out what the heck he did to it.

First I tried booting the computer… it booted just fine. I watched the POST screen scroll by, watched the machine boot through all of its configuration screens, then the logon screen. I tried typing in the user name; nothing.
Next I fired it up and when into the BIOS, checking to see if there were any weird changes due to the BIOS being reset (there was a static discharge). I eventually reset the BIOS to the default settings. Still, as soon as the logon prompt was up the keyboard was dead. Still skeptical that he had actually tried moving the machine to the other office I proceeded to carry it the twenty feet or so to plug it in in my office. Sure enough it came all the way up, logon and everything. Then I tried my machine in his office. Same deal, no keyboard at the logon.
Thinking that maybe there was a problem with the network cable, I traded it out. Same thing. I unplugged the mouse, no go. I moved the network cable on the switch in the back room to a different port, changed the cable in the backroom, moved the cable to a different jack on the patch panel. Still not working. I even went as far as to bring the monitor from my office across the hall and plugged it in. Then I tried a different power outlet, then a different power outlet with a different surge protector. All of this with the same stupifying results… a logon prompt with a dead keyboard.
After two and a half hours, I had a minor flash of brilliance: although I had tried every combination of keyboards (4), monitors (2), network cables and jacks(3*4), and offices (2), and even tried to boot up Knoppix a live Linux CD, I had not tried a different mouse in this office. I saw a mouse just hanging out and decided that it wouldn’t hurt to plug it in. I tried it. It booted. Well, I’ve seen this before. The logon prompt came up. Lo and behold, I could type in the user name. I could type in the password. The mouse was working. I decided one more small experiment was in order. I took the now suspect mouse to my office and plugged it in. Sure enough, at the logon prompt I had a dead keyboard. I resolved to throw away the despicable piece of plastic and servos that is called “mouse”.
One final note: The machines in question are dumb terminals. They boot their Operating System from a server running the K12LTSP OS. This has worked very well for over three years. I’m guessing that there is something in the way the system boots that requires an operational mouse. It can’t be toasted; it can’t be unplugged… actually the Knoppix CD required the operating mouse as well.