The computer is not killing your mice. Either something is corrupt in Win 98 SE and is not detecting the mouse and/or serial port, or the serial port is not working (or only intermittently connected).  Someone suggested a USB mouse, and while that could be an easy solution, I would venture a guess that what sounds like a stock computer running a 266 Mhz Celeron CPU that does not have a PS2 port will not have any USB ports.

If money is an issue, the first thing I'd do is save my files to removeable media, then fdisk and reformat for a fresh install of W98SE. If that doesn't fix the detection problem, then I'd find a local neighborhood friendly tech person to run a check on the serial port to see if it is broken and can be fixed.  Unless this tech person is willing to work for next to nothing, you could probably get a used computer on ebay that is more modern for less money than paying to get the serial port fixed.


>Hello Listers,
>
>I have noted that my computer (Celeron 266 running Win98SE) has been
>killing mice once a week. It has already gone through 2 perfectly good
>functioning serial mice. At first I thought the mouse died naturally, but
>two in a row? Tried also DOS level driver but that did not work. Alas there
>is no PS/2 socket to insert into. Anybody have any ideas?
>
>

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