Trackpoint mouse pointer spazzes with battery monitor on
 

I am running FC3 on an IBM Thinkpad, and I have a wireless optical mouse via USB as well as the trackpoint that's on the laptop. Whenever there's a battery monitor being displayed (it does show the correct percentage), the trackpoint mouse goes crazy. I finally checked /var/log/messages to see the error, and here it is:

Anyone know what's going on and how I can fix it??? It's really annoying to not have a battery monitor when I'm in class running on the battery!

Thanks!

Not sure what model you have, but I have an R31 Thinkpad running SuSE9.2 with basically the same problem. Everything Ive read about it so far seems to indicate its a bug in the powermanagement at the bios level - and as far as I know I am running the latest available. Some info suggested it was only a problem when using APM, but I had the same problem with APCI until I stopped the powersaved ( /etc/init.d/powersaved stop ; chkconfig powersaved off ) and rebooted (it still had the problem till the next time I powered up). The reason it doesnt exhibit under windows probably comes from the different way Xwindows uses a mouse to Windows (hence why also some cheaper console switches lose a Unix/Linux mouse but dont lose a Windows mouse - ie I believe Xwindows "polls" the mouse whereas windows mouse driver generates events).

Good luck. :rolleyes:

If it really is a problem at the BIOS level, is there any way to fix it? Or is there any way I can find out if it is a problem at the BIOS level?

Not sure myself as its only what I've read, but I have also read that if you use an external mouse (eg a USB mouse) that the problem goes away if you really need the powermanagement, so perhaps you could borrow one and give it a try.

Oh i have one, but it sits in my dorm room...my main thing is that I want a batter monitor in class. Does anyone know if there's any way to go about fixing this problem?