Mike Salsbury’s Blog

Frequently in my work as a Windows system administrator, I am asked to troubleshoot unusual application problems that our first and second-level support staff have been unable to fix. Although I troubleshoot these kinds of problems on a fairly regular basis, I find that I don’t always do so consistently. I might overlook something that I shouldn’t have, or I might forget something I’ve seen before that helped me solve a similar problem.

To help myself and my co-workers jog our memories when presented with an application problem that doesn’t respond to the troubleshooting steps we’ve tried so far, I developed the following (lengthy) series of questions to ask myself when I run into a problem that seems to be resisting my efforts to solve it. Since this list might be of value to others who are trying to solve problems with Windows (or even Mac or Linux applications, though this guide is aimed specifically at Windows), I thought I would publish it here so that others could benefit from it.

admin Windows Administration, Windows Support application, diagnosing, error, failure, fixing, problem, program, Troubleshooting

Earlier this year, in my work as a system administrator, I was assigned to investigate why approximately 40 co-workers (out of 1700 using a PC or Mac) were having USB optical mouse issues. The symptoms were generally the same. While using the computer, the user’s USB optical mouse would simply stop working. If they flipped the mouse over, it was as though the mouse was powered off. The laser would appear to have shut off. If they unplugged and re-plugged the mouse, it would nearly always come back to life. Only once in a while was it necessary to reboot the machine. Once in a great while, the USB keyboard would stop working as well. Again, unplugging and re-plugging seemed to fix it.

When I went through my first round of problems early in the year, a lengthy investigation proved that all of my 40 cases could be solved by performing the following steps:

1. Update the system BIOS from the manufacturer’s web site. Sometimes this corrected the issue and no more work was needed.
2. Update the motherboard chipset drivers from the manufacturer’s web site. Sometimes this corrected the issue and no more work was needed.
3. Update the mouse drivers from the mouse manufacturer’s web site. Again, sometimes this corrected the issue and no more work was needed.
4. Replace the mouse with another mouse from stock.
5. Replace the keyboard with another keyboard from stock.
6. Install a self-powered USB hub between the computer and the mouse/keyboard.

The above 6 remedies seemed to take care of all 40 users.

Then, about 3 weeks ago, the problem reared its ugly head again. This time, the above 6 steps didn’t work. People who were run through all 6 of them still had the problem. Our help desk bumped the problem back to me to resolve, since I’d handled the one earlier in the year.
This time I went through a pretty thorough search on the web, Microsoft’s knowledgebase, Dell’s knowledgebase, etc. What I learned was interesting. When I searched for mouse failures as a whole, probably 99% of the time it was an optical mouse that failed. Moreover, it was almost always a USB optical mouse that failed. This was true on Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, and one or two other lesser-known operating systems. The brand of mouse didn’t seem to matter, either. I read about the problem existing with every major brand and even some generic types. It made me wonder about the reliability of USB optical mice.

As a troubleshooting step, I suggested that we identify 1-2 of our users who were having the most “mouse failures”. We swapped them with some new mechanical (i.e., old “ball style”) mice from stock. The problems vanished for those users. As a follow-up step, I attacked the users’ former optical mice to my system. Sure enough, I began seeing the problem myself.

An interesting observation occurred when we had one user who wanted to attach both an older mechanical mouse and an optical mouse to his Windows XP Pro system at the same time. He found that his optical mouse would fail, while the mechanical one kept working normally. (And again, when I swapped his optical mouse for mine, I began to see the problem myself.)

Another interesting observation was made after we installed Microsoft Windows XP Hotfix 914015 and 918365 on the affected systems. Occasionally the mouse would stop working as before, but within a couple of seconds it tended to come back to life on its own without any effort. (Please do not ask me for these hotfixes. If Microsoft won’t provide them to you, I can’t help as it would be illegal to do so.)

So it appears to me at the moment that we may have two separate issues here. The first issue is that there is a bug in the Windows XP Pro USB stack that causes a mouse to go offline if it asks to have the USB controller reset due to an error. The Microsoft hotfix takes care of that. The other issue is that we seem to have quite a few defective USB mice on-hand. In fact, I pulled one randomly out of stock and tested it, and it turned out to be defective. I confirmed this by attaching it to a Mac OS X system (in addition to a Windows XP system) and finding the same result, the mouse quit working.

I have a suspicion that the reliability of USB optical mice is not as high as we all might think. Just gauging from the numbers I’m seeing at our site, as many as 3% of the optical mice in use are in fact defective. Whether this is just the failure rate we should expect or whether it’s symptomatic of a widespread defect in USB optical mice, I don’t know.

In any case, it’s caused me to add a few items to the above list of 6 steps:

7. Apply Microsoft Hotfix 914015 (if it’s a Windows XP system).
8. Apply Microsoft Hotfix 918365 (if it’s a Windows XP system).
9. Test the user’s mouse on a system that isn’t currently experiencing the mouse issue and give the user a mouse that hasn’t been shown so far to have the problem.
10. Swap the optical mouse with a mechanical (roller ball type) mouse.
11. If the system and mouse support it, try installing the mouse on a PS/2 port instead of USB. We didn’t see these issues with PS/2 mice on any platform.

Those steps, so far, seem to eliminate the problem in all cases. Perhaps they’ll help you if you’re experiencing a problem with your USB mouse.

admin General Computer Topics fix, issue, mice, mouse, optical, problem, troubleshoot, usb, Windows XP

Consider this a “cautionary tale” about rental cars… Names are being altered to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent…

Earlier this year, my wife and I rented a mini-van from an outfit we’ll call “Nifty Rent-A-Car” (though that’s not their name). We picked up the vehicle at a nearby Nifty rental office and headed off for a vacation. The next day, at our destination, we were rear-ended by a young driver. He was going so fast in the 35 mph zone that he knocked our stopped mini-van into the vehicle in front of us, knocking that vehicle into the car in front of it, and spinning his own vehicle two lanes over and in front of the three others. In other words, it’s unlikely he was going anywhere near 35 when he hit us.

The damage to the back of our rental van and his vehicle was extensive. The rental van and the two other cards were drivable. His car had to be towed. We were all shaken, but fortunately there appear to have been no serious injuries… at least nothing that has shown up yet.

After getting the police report, having breakfast, and going back to our rented condo, we called the rental car company to tell them about the accident, provide police report information, etc. We also contacted my insurance company to have their involvement. The insurance company, which I’ll call “Commonwealth Ranch” (though that’s not their name), treated me extremely well. They spoke with me at length about the accident, explained what I needed to do at each step of the process, etc. I have always been pleased with that insurance company and this didn’t change that.

Nifty Rent-A-Car wasn’t quite so easy to deal with. We left messages, called various numbers, and asked to have the car swapped with another since the tailgate in this one was no longer usable. After several very frustrating calls, we were given two options. One was to continue driving the van, but if Nifty’s people spotted it and decided that it was in their opinion “disabled” they would tow it away and we wouldn’t have one. The other was to drive 3-4 hours away to their nearest location and exchange it. Since I was on vacation, the last thing I wanted was 6-8 hours in the damaged van doing nothing else, after having had an 10 hour drive to get to the vacation destination. So I opted for option one and made the mental note never to rent from Nifty ever again.

The next day, someone else at Nifty got one of the messages we left on their voicemail. This person must have been having a better day. He not only volunteered to replace the car, but offered to send someone to us to pick up the damaged one. It was a total 180-degree turnaround from the earlier frustrating calls. (Can you say bi-polar company?) The driver showed up when he promised he would, with a van that was comparable to the one we had originally, though not in quite as good a shape. But hey, it was an improvement and it wasn’t wrecked, so that was fine with me. We swapped vehicles, I filled out some paperwork, and we finished our vacation.

When we returned home, we received a call from Countrywide Insurance (not their name) saying that they were accepting fault for the accident and would cover the costs of the claim. “Good,” I thought, “that will be the end of that.”

It wasn’t. Last week I received a letter from Nifty, telling me that the insurance companies had paid all they were planning to pay and that I still owed them $5200+ for repairs to their vehicle. If I “agreed” all I needed to do was give them a credit card number or check. That didn’t sit well with me. It didn’t sound right.

I called Commonwealth Ranch (my insurance company) and checked in with my claim adjuster there. She looked up the records and said that the insurance companies were disputing Nifty’s claim that $4800 worth of damage was done to the van. She told me that they’re aware that car rental companies negotiate repair parts and labor discounts with body shops, and that while it might have cost you or me $4800 to repair the damage done to the van, Nifty probably paid a bit less. She said they’d asked Nifty to provide an invoice showing the “actual” amount of damages to the vehicle, but Nifty had not provided one, so they naturally had no paid.

She also told me that some car rental companies, and apparently Nifty was one of them, would try to get the customer to pay money if they didn’t like how fast the insurance companies were or weren’t moving. Essentially, if I had paid the $5200 Nifty was asking for, I was paying for the repair, their “loss of use” of the rental car, and various other fees, which were the responsibility of Countrywide Insurance. Countrywide had by no means told Nifty they wouldn’t pay what they owed them, they just wanted proof that Nifty had paid that much to fix the car. As soon as they provided that proof, they’d get their money. So the request they sent to me was essentially an attempt to scare me into paying for the damage in lieu of the person who caused the accident and their insurance company.

Uh, no, Nifty… I wasn’t at fault for the accident, my insurance isn’t finished with you, and the driver who was at fault has insurance which hasn’t paid you yet. When you’ve gotten what you can from the insurance companies and the other driver, we’ll talk about what I might owe you – but I think that will be a big fat zero.

admin Life accident, insurance, issue, problem, rental car, wreck