Linux Mint Forums

Hi there. Been out for a while (no net last months...), but I was using Mint dualbooting with XP during that time. No problems so far, the system was perfectly stable and fast. Everything running good. I got a GSM net here, it uses a cell-phone to connect. It's like dial-up, but faster. So I decided to find a way to make it work with my Mint (of course the manufacter didn't make a linux driver for its modem), and I did it. Then I decided to wipe sloWindows out from my machine forever and install a fresh Mint from the ground. I did it too. Now the problems started to pop up. The most annoying is the USB mouse suddenly stopping to work. From nowhere, ramdomly, it stops: the lights keep turned on, but I can do nothing with the pointer and buttons. Unplugging and plugging again didn't solve the problem: I must reboot to make it work again. By now I connected a PS2 mouse, so when the USB one stops I can switch immediatelly.

Well, some clue outhere? I googled and found this problem been a bit common. Some say it's the BIOS that must be updated. Well, my BIOS is updated, and it worked several months before the wipe. Now, with everything being the same, it doens't work.

Please, shed some light here, Oh! mighty paladins of the pure Mint!

One can say with some confidence that "random errors" are hardware based - programs do the same given the same circumstances unless they are designed to do things randomly which is not very common
The question is why the randomness was tolerated earlier but no after a fresh install and that's very hard to say
It may have something to do with the dual boot you had
To restart USB or
Restart USB :
sudo rmmod ehci_hcd
sudo modprobe ehci_hcd

If that doesn't work, it may be one of the other hcd modules that needs to be reloaded.
Get a list of them :

sudo modprobe -l |grep hcd

Try them all - when/if you know which one you're a step closer to the solution

I've encountered a few similar problems with various machines. The solution was generally simple, set the option 'USB Legacy Support' to Enabled in BIOS. If you don't have it in your BIOS, look for something like 'Assign IRQ to USB' and reverse the option (i.e. switch it to Enabled if it's originally set to Disabled and the other way around).

Well, either of the above workarounds did solve the problem most of the time. If none of them works for you, or if you don't see anything like the ones I've mentioned in your BIOS, you'll definitely have to get your hands dirty.

Sorry if I was slow to reply. My BIOS has the USB legacy option, and it was already enabled. Instead, I disabled the USB 2.0 option: now it´s only 1.1. That apparently solved the problem. What drives me nut is why this didn't happen before the fresh install. I will try the legacy option later (I'm at work now): the solution I found makes my pendrive looks like a floppy disk in terms of transfer rate.

Thx for the help.