Hi, 
    I am not sure if this is a hardware, or software problem.  I am running as follows:

Pentium III 533B 133 FSB
ABIT BE-6II board
640 Megs pc133 sdram
7 gig Maxtor hd
30 gig Maxtor hd 
cdrom 
floppy drive 3.5 
Linksys nic for dsl 
56k modem for fax 
Matrox G400+ video card 
3DFX Voodoo 2 3d card 

    I recently purchased a standard microsoft game pad.  Up until this time I had never used my USB ports in the 7 months I have had the system up and running.  When I plugged the game pad in, Windows 98 immediately recognized it and loaded the drivers.  Oh, by the way, the OS is Windows 98 original build with all updates and IE6 final. 
    Anyway, when I booted the next day, the os didn't see the game pad.  I rebooted and it found the pad.  However, since that time, no matter what I did; sometimes it would see the pad, but most of the time it would not see the pad.  So I invested in a USB/PCI card (Belkin F5U005) and the same thing is happening. 
I have a microsoft optical mouse that I can run on usb or ps2.  When I run it on usb, it acts just the same as the game pad.  When it sees the game pad , it will see the mouse.  When it doesn't see the game pad, it doesn't see the mouse. 
    Anybody have any ideas?  I am giving serious thought to curling up with a bottle of Jack Daniels and searching for inspiration.:>)   

TIA 
Harold Thomas

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