trouble with usb devices under mandrake linux 10 community

I've been running Mandrake 9.2 for a while now and was getting on well with it but thought that I'd try this new version 10. It installed ok and I went for the upgrade option. Unfortunately, it seems to have some kind of usb conflict. It won't recognise my mouse through the whole installation process and neither when I load linux. I can get my mouse working if I boot under the older kernel version 2.4.22 I think. I read somewhere a post about certain motherboards having a conflict with kernel 2.6... something to do with acpi or something... any ideas?

I can keep running the older kernel but was hoping that 2.6 would solve some sound issues I'd been having...