well, i bought the PC it was an incredible deal @ the time, smth around $500 for this unit plus 19'' widescreen Viewsonic and i needed smth more modern than the old tower i had ( pentium 2? ). Though it was working well as a file server %).
I do know that when i boots it says smth " ..manufactured for ACER only" or smth to this extent. I seriously doubt that this is a good MB, but it has been working all these years and survived even my flash %). So they did at least smth right.

I didn't notice any second chip (bios).

Btw, speaking of quality - reading and writing on the same IDE controller to 2 drives is pretty miserable. At the same time it may have a lot to do with IDE limitations than with the MB itself..

and still have the same problem with usb mouse ... hrr...

IRQ INTR_SF lossage

Seems you are not alone with that problem; but all the links and threads I can find on the net appear to be at least a year old or more, leading me to think that maybe the issue has been fixed properly (or worked around successfully) in a more recent version of the Linux kernel.

What version of kernel are you running? You can use `uname -r` to find out.

Seems the problem has not specifically to do with your mouse, but with the OHCI code (open host controller interface) which drives the USb controller, and possible also to do with a flaky BIOS. I haven't read of concrete evidence or proof either way, but I can't see any search results that are very recent.

Maybe a kernel upgrade will get rid of the trouble?

Or, see post#6 at this link: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=227412 for a possible fix.

Let us know how you make out

Sasha

yeah, you came to the same conclusion i did - why do you think i started with BIOS update? There were a few open bugs on RH that seemed to indicate 2 things :
1. BIOS is on crack
2. with the new release of the kernel users stopped expiriencing the problem

Mine seemed to the the opposite - i didn't have this problem until after i went over .10 version. now i'm running the latest and greatest from centos - 2.6.18.164 ( it's all and always being rpm based).

I read those suggestions ( mentioned by you above ) and added " apic=off noapic". As of this writing is made the problem even worse - occurrence decreased in time and increased in frequency ( every 1, 2 minutes vs once in 2, 3 hours).
So i have 2 choices left
a. try "noapic irqpoll pci=routeirq"
b. disable all settings with "APIC" in bios and test it.

this is the action plan for tonight and a few days. As always - will update with resolution or status.

Update:
option "a" - didn't make the issue worse. So i'll work for a few days and report back.
GN

What version of the linux kernel are you currently running. I remember a bit back reading the comit changes for the recent kernel alot of USB fixes. Also you may wanna boot into your bios and look for anything refering to the USB ports sometimes it will say legacy support or what not. Whatever setting its on now change it to off or enabled its possible this could solve your issue. Another thing to check is if you are using a PS2 to USB converter. Some of the google searches I came up with were people doing this and having this kind of issue.

Others on this thread know more Linux info than myself, but here are my suggestions,

1. Since you had a hiccup flashing the bios the first time, I would consider reflashing your bios.

2. Try to boot up with a good hardware detecting live CD/DVD like Knoppix (just came out with an updated version) and see if you have the same mouse and keyboard problems. If this step works, then you rule out the hardware/bios as the problem.

exvor, thank you for the info . Kernel is rpm based 2.6.18.164.It's the latest from CentOS team.
BIOS - it does report the "legacy support" see above, but i don't see how i can change that. All i found is the USB support for mice, keyboard and v1+2. Though i do remember that in the previous version of BIOS i had this option and could change it. Suggestions with PS are not applicable in my case.

I left the machine running overnight and seemed to be fine.

Hmmmmm that kernel version is kinda old. The most recent version is 2.6.31.6 that is marked as stable. I guess the cent guys have been kinda slippin with the updates there. If you want you can download the vanilla kernel image from www.kernel.org and build it yourself. However this may not be an option if you have never done this before it can be a bit overwhelming for a newcomer. Things to consider when using this approach are you need to know what type of hardware your running on, cpu type, motherboard chip sets, Ethernet controller type, etc... It is by no means hard to do just takes a bit of time. Just remember to include your file system support into the kernel.

thank you, but i htink i'll stick to the current version - it works and i ( major ) have half a day to get through all the options. Plus last time i did this was for 2.4 and quite a few things have changed since.

SO....
So far -so good. I'll play with video editing over this weekend - if it brakes i may have to follow your advise and get the newer version.

thank you and happy Thanksgiving!

today i started getting "cdrom_pc_intr: The drive appears confused (ireason = 0x01). Trying to recover by ending request". No updates came from the repos. Didn't make any changes....

"Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice@

11/28:
took "irqpoll" out - annoying message went away...