On 29/05/12 10:51, Adam Bower wrote:
On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 10:42:01AM +0100, Bev Nicolson wrote:
Not an option open to me Ted, unfortunately. This is the only computer I've got.
Have you tried unplugging all the usb devices and then plugging just the keyboard or mouse into different usb ports? Each USB bus can supply up to 500ma of power (IIRC) but you can have 3 or 4 ports available on each bus (or more) it may be that what you're plugging in is taking the ports just over this and/or they are detecting a condition that may damage them (i.e. power spike) and the computer is shutting them down.
Adam
yeh I'll second that, almost certainly one of the devices on the same bus is misbehaving. In theory when this happens the bus should shut down power, if it's an optical mouse the light will go out.
I've had all sorts doing this from an iffy keyboard to a mouse where the cable was so worn at the entry point to the device it was putting an intermittent short across the USB +5V and GND.
Of course a damaged USB connector can also cause it so have a good swap around of what is plugged into which ports or as Ted says look in the logs.