On  9 Mar 98 at 19:37, Walter W. McKinley wrote:

>     I am having trouble getting a serial mouse installed on a system
> while installing Win95 OSR2 on a new Seagate 2.1 gig HD. I tried to
> eliminate defective hardware variables by swapping 2 VX Pro MBs, 1
> 430!HX MB (that was running the serial mouse originally), 3 different 9
> pin serial ports/cables, 4 different mice (2 which I know work). I made
> sure that pin#1 was lined up with the red cable wire.
>
>     I have let Win95 search for the mouse, and I've tried to enter the
> serial mouse information manually. The only common variable between the
> MBs is they all have Award BIOS. The other hardware to note: Pentium 75,
> 16 megs EDO. I left all other peripherals off to make sure PnP wasn't
> grabbing the IRQs for something else.
>
>     This is surely a simple problem that in my frustration I have
> overlooked. Any suggestions on solving this problem will be appreciated.

  I've run into two problems that looked kinda like this, each with
its own solution:

1)  There are two obvious ways to map the pins of a 9-pin serial
connector to a 10-pin (may only have 9 present) motherboard
connector.  Some manufacturers use one, some the other, and some may
have invented solutions I don't consider "obvious".  It's important
that the ribbon cable (which connects the two) be the one supplied by
the manufacturer of *this* motherboard.

2)  Win95 seems to have trouble detecting serial mice on its own, on
some machines.  Counter-intuitive as it sounds, installing a DOS
mouse driver (in CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT) seems to be just the
assist that Win95 needs.

David G