wonky adb ports?

[Usman Muzaffar]

Trusty old (and I do mean *trusty*, *old*) SE/30 decides to move mouse and
click keys (usually, Enter) by itself about 3-4 minutes after cold boot.
Tried different keyboards, different mice, both ADB ports on the unit, and
various combinations of cables connecting mouse directly to SE/30 and via
keyboard. Always the same story: five minutes or so after boot, mouse motion
is erratic, registers clicks and drags by itself, keyboard is
pseudo-responsive. Also tried booting with extensions off - no go.

Yeah, yeah, I know it's a hundred years old and all but I do have some data
on there I want off and I can't do it without stable input devices. At this
point I still can't decide if it's hardware or software that's at fault:
sounds like mobo ports are fried, but both of them at the same time?

Any suggestions appreciated!
thanks,
usman

[Geoffrey]

Usman Muzaffar <n...@muzaffarx.org> wrote:

> Trusty old (and I do mean *trusty*, *old*) SE/30 decides to move mouse and
> click keys (usually, Enter) by itself about 3-4 minutes after cold boot.

That's a wierd one.

What I immediately thought of was that you may have had somebody slip
that old practical-joke "Monkey" extension (or virus, or whatever it
was) that would do that random-input thing, but you tried without
extensions, so ... ::shrug::?

> Yeah, yeah, I know it's a hundred years old and all but I do have some
> data on there I want off and I can't do it without stable input devices.

Either remove the hard drive and hook it up somewhere else, or see of
you can get it to boot off a floppy that's got AppleShare on it (the
Network Installer disk image from Apple's website would be my choice) or
some other external boot medium. If a different system disk eradicates
the problem

> At this point I still can't decide if it's hardware or software that's at
> fault: sounds like mobo ports are fried, but both of them at the same
> time?

Possible. Both ADB port driver chips are looked after by the one serial
controller chip, so it could be the latter which is feeling it's age
(and no chance of repair short of replacing the chip). Or perhaps a dry
joint on the mainboard around those chips -- how good are you with a
soldering iron? :)

Geoffrey

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