Dell Lat --- no PS2 mouse port

Reyman

My new Dell Latitude has no PS2 mouse port. i've tried using an adopter for the serial port but the PC doesn't see the mouse. Anyone know an easy solution ---- the mouse i'm using is an expensive hand held one and I don't want t o throw it away !

Gosh

What make of mouse is it?

GoneShootin

Possily try a ps2->usb converter

Peteee

Reyman wrote:

the mouse i'm using is an expensive hand held one

Handheld mouse eh

What will they think of next!! :rolleyes:

fletch

This thread may be of interest to ya

Random

PS2 to USB converter. Let's you plug kb and mouse into usb port.

E25 in Maplin, I'm sure Peats do them too.

Reyman

Thanks for all the help and 'Fletch' that thread was interesting.

I'd hoped to avoid the USB route cause there's only two ports on the machine, though i know a hub would solve that. .

It seems this is an economy measure on Dell's part. Ideally they'd like to provide no ports at all on their PCs.
Once you get dominant in the market you get the Accountants in to cut costs and wreck the product !!!

GoneShootin

Reyman wrote:

Ideally they'd like to provide no ports at all on their PCs.

ouch

RuggieBear

Reyman wrote:

Thanks for all the help and 'Fletch' that thread was interesting.

I'd hoped to avoid the USB route cause there's only two ports on the machine, though i know a hub would solve that. .

It seems this is an economy measure on Dell's part. Ideally they'd like to provide no ports at all on their PCs.
Once you get dominant in the market you get the Accountants in to cut costs and wreck the product !!!

tbh i think it's great that they got rid off the bloody ps2 mouse port....which dell lattitude do you have....mine has three usb ports....2 behind and one on the side....it's a d800

ozt9vdujny3srf

RuggieBear wrote:

tbh i think it's great that they got rid off the bloody ps2 mouse port....which dell lattitude do you have....mine has three usb ports....2 behind and one on the side....it's a d800

Darn tootin, those ps2 ports are outdated silly ports that only do one thing, whereas usb does lots of things.

Which would you rather more usb and no ps2 or ps2 and less usb?

I think i know your answer. You shower of bastards you.

Gosh

Kaden Straight Wallflower wrote:

You shower of bastards you.

Was there really a need to end a legitimate point with that?

koneko

It's pretty common on laptops to remove the PS2 port. It's only used for one thing, and most people have USB mice at this stage anyway (and the ones that don't? Go get one!)

Mutant_Fruit

i had just gone out and gotten a nice shiny new optical PS/2 mouse for my laptop, and only noticed it had no port after i tried to plug it in. So now its in my home computer, and the ****ty optical mouse is in the attic

To sum up... GRR ARRGH @ dell. And why only 2 effin USB ports? I cant use a USB mouse and my memory stick at the same time. What kind of idiot designed this laptop. It might as well only have one port.

ozt9vdujny3srf

Gosh wrote:

Was there really a need to end a legitimate point with that?

Absolutely

Jip

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

To sum up... GRR ARRGH @ dell. And why only 2 effin USB ports? I cant use a USB mouse and my memory stick at the same time. What kind of idiot designed this laptop. It might as well only have one port.

I have 4 USB ports on my Dell laptop, I supposed it's all down to what model you get. And why can't you use your mouse and stick at the same time, what else have you got plugged in ?

nospamjl

hi Reyman,

Check the PS/2 port for lables/etched icons of keyboard and
mouse. On many laptops a single PS/2 port is available but
using a splitter cable from the manufacturor will allow keyboard
and mouse.

nospamjl

sceptre

Jip wrote:

I have 4 USB ports on my Dell laptop, I supposed it's all down to what model you get.

That's indeed the case. The hulky ones (the Inspiron 9x00s for example) all appear to have 4, the lighter ones like the lighter latitudes (the OP didn't say which one he has) all appear to have 2. I believe the D410 doesn't have a firewire port, though I don't have one and I haven't examined one closely enough to make absolutely sure.

Reyman

I have a Lat D600 - there's two USB ports on it.

My point is - Dell could easily have kept the PS2 port .

I can see where we're going --- half a dozen cables coming out of daisy chained USB hubs, which need power (in some cases) It's not a portable laptop at all!

rsynnott

The lack of PS2 port is a cost savings issue. (Generally laptop ones are a little more expensive than desktop ones, too, because no-one wants their laptop to die if they connect things while it's running). A USB->PS2 thingy will do the job for any reasonably modern OS. But it does mean that one can't use a Xylinx chip programmer on a modern laptop (They draw power from the PS2, bizarrely).! It's a disgrace!

RicardoSmith

If you need more than 2 USB devices then carrying around a hub is hardly any more of a problem than carrying around the USB devices that you want to connect. :rolleyes:

Do you need to travel a lot and do some Xylinx chip programming on the go?

There are laptops with PS/2 ports and 4 USB ports. Its your fault for not doing your homework and buying one without them!

Jeezz... :rolleyes:

Mutant_Fruit

The problem is if i stick in my USB memory stick, its bulky enough that i can't fit in the cable for the mouse at the same time. So its a case of unplugging a USB mouse if you want to use the memory stick. An annoyance, albeit a minor one.

Its a Latitude D505, and considering i payed €500 for it, i can't really complain

tk123

Ricardo you beat me to it again!! I was just abt to say that - original poster why the hell didn't you read the spec when you bought the lapper?!? It's not Dells fault that you didnt pay enough attention to see there wasn't PS2 ports!

rsynnott

The Xylinx thing was joke (I suspect they may make mains-powered programmers as well, in any case)

Random

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

The problem is if i stick in my USB memory stick, its bulky enough that i can't fit in the cable for the mouse at the same time. So its a case of unplugging a USB mouse if you want to use the memory stick. An annoyance, albeit a minor one.

Its a Latitude D505, and considering i payed €500 for it, i can't really complain

Get a USB AM-AF cable .. problems solved

kasintahan

PS2 ports are legacy ports.

Nobody should be putting them on new equipment.

USB replaced PS2, serial, parallel and game ports years ago.
That's what the U in USB stands for "Universal".

sceptre

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

The problem is if i stick in my USB memory stick, its bulky enough that i can't fit in the cable for the mouse at the same time. So its a case of unplugging a USB mouse if you want to use the memory stick. An annoyance, albeit a minor one.

Get yourself one of those nice cheap USB extension cables. Should only cost a few quid. Like the ones shop4memory have on this page (unfortunately, it'll have to be /like/ those ones as they only sell them with a drive). It'll solve your problem.

As for the price for the machine, nice. Outlet store?

MickFarr

your better off using a PS2 port if you have one rather than the USB port

ozt9vdujny3srf

sceptre wrote:

As for the price for the machine, nice. Outlet store?

College Subisidised

RicardoSmith

MickFarr wrote:

your better off using a PS2 port if you have one rather than the USB port

Only if your a hardcore FPS gamer. Which you won't be on a laptop, but on a CRT with a desktop machine... :rolleyes: Besides which you can hack a USB port to poll more often if that floats your boat.

So thats about .5% of the user base of these laptops... :rolleyes:

rsynnott

kasintahan wrote:

PS2 ports are legacy ports.

Nobody should be putting them on new equipment.

USB replaced PS2, serial, parallel and game ports years ago.
That's what the U in USB stands for "Universal".

Erm, this is the computer industry. The 386 came out around 1985, the first 32bit idiot-suitable OS came out in 1995. ISA became obsolete in the early nineties and was in wide use until a couple of years ago. There's no evidence that the 8086 will EVER die.

And those were just things which have no redeeming factors when compared to the replacements. Serial and parallel ports, in particular, are still more suited to certain tasks than USB.

RicardoSmith

rsynnott wrote:

Erm, this is the computer industry. The 386 came out around 1985, the first 32bit idiot-suitable OS came out in 1995. ISA became obsolete in the early nineties and was in wide use until a couple of years ago. There's no evidence that the 8086 will EVER die.

And those were just things which have no redeeming factors when compared to the replacements. Serial and parallel ports, in particular, are still more suited to certain tasks than USB.

Thats not the issue here. Someone simply didn't do their homework and bought the wrong product. Thats the purchasers fault.

Nothing to do with technology at all. Its like someone has specialist ISA cards and then buys a PC with no ISA slots. Duh... :rolleyes:

rsynnott

RicardoSmith wrote:

Thats not the issue here. Someone simply didn't do their homework and bought the wrong product. Thats the purchasers fault.

Nothing to do with technology at all. Its like someone has specialist ISA cards and then buys a PC with no ISA slots. Duh... :rolleyes:

Nah, I was just having an issue with that mad, mad suggestion that no-one should be making PS2-equipped devices any more

kasintahan

rsynnott wrote:

Nah, I was just having an issue with that mad, mad suggestion that no-one should be making PS2-equipped devices any more

Aside from having a default polling interval slightly faster than USB, PS2 has no advantages.

I'm not saying PS2 doesn't do it's job, it's just USB is more flexible.

As for ISA, that went out with the faries. Nobody with performace requirements used it if eISA/MCA/PCI/AGP options were available. Simply having an ISA card in a computer hits the performance.

(yeah, you're talking to someone with an old 8 bit ISA only IBM prototype 8088 MB beside him)

rsynnott

kasintahan wrote:

Aside from having a default polling interval slightly faster than USB, PS2 has no advantages.

I'm not saying PS2 doesn't do it's job, it's just USB is more flexible.

As for ISA, that went out with the faries. Nobody with performace requirements used it if eISA/MCA/PCI/AGP options were available. Simply having an ISA card in a computer hits the performance.

(yeah, you're talking to someone with an old 8 bit ISA only IBM prototype 8088 MB beside him)

The point is that PS2 does its job, reliably and in a well-supported fashion. It's still handy if you occasionally need to use elderly operating systems, for instance. Plus has a higher power output (not that that's very useful, except for the Xylinx thing). That's pretty much the case for PS2, I suppose .

Serial ports certainly still have their uses; they're far easier to program and serial controller chips are cheaper and easier to use.

Eh, serial soundcards and other things where performance wasn't a big deal were around until motherboards started dropping support.

This is a very silly argument :P

MickFarr

RicardoSmith wrote:

Only if your a hardcore FPS gamer. Which you won't be on a laptop, but on a CRT with a desktop machine... :rolleyes: Besides which you can hack a USB port to poll more often if that floats your boat.

So thats about .5% of the user base of these laptops... :rolleyes:

:rolleyes: Who said anything about FPS. It's to do with your CPU :rolleyes:
You'd better read up on USB ports :rolleyes:

RicardoSmith

MickFarr wrote:

:rolleyes: Who said anything about FPS. It's to do with your CPU :rolleyes:
You'd better read up on USB ports :rolleyes:

MickFarr wrote:

your better off using a PS2 port if you have one rather than the USB port

Well how the heck is anyone meant to know what your talking about because you made a vague baslia comment with no details to back it up. You could have meant anything. What did you mean. A HD, A CDRW, A controller what???? :rolleyes:

When you consider this is a laptop, designed for mobile computing and performance is compromised so it can be portable. What mission critical application would you be running that would be signficantly affected by the different in CPU cycles/usage between PS/2 and USB device. :rolleyes:

Reyman

I discovered you can reset the mouse port to serial / PS2/ Touch pad using the Bios setup (F2 at start up).

I set it to serial port and used a PS2 to serial adapter --- no luck though!

rsynnott

I'm assuming you're running Windows? Try doing an "Add New Hardware" or whatever it's called nowadays with the mouse plugged in. If you're on Linux, you'll have to run a distro-specific config app or modify XF86Config, xorg.conf or whatever your distro deigns to call it.

MickFarr

RicardoSmith wrote:

Well how the heck is anyone meant to know what your talking about because you made a vague baslia comment with no details to back it up. You could have meant anything. What did you mean. A HD, A CDRW, A controller what???? :rolleyes:

When you consider this is a laptop, designed for mobile computing and performance is compromised so it can be portable. What mission critical application would you be running that would be signficantly affected by the different in CPU cycles/usage between PS/2 and USB device. :rolleyes:

Ha ha

vague = RicardoSmith.

Everything will be compromised. duh :rolleyes:

RicardoSmith

MickFarr wrote:

Ha ha

vague = RicardoSmith.

Everything will be compromised. duh :rolleyes:

Great answer...