Is it just the one specific mouse? Which model is it? Do you have another serial mouse to try on those machines?

You could try a dos or freedos boot disk with the cute mouse (ctmouse) driver to see if that works. I've had a lot of luck with that driver.

notsonic wrote on 2020-11-18, 18:42:

Is it just the one specific mouse? Which model is it? Do you have another serial mouse to try on those machines?

You could try a dos or freedos boot disk with the cute mouse (ctmouse) driver to see if that works. I've had a lot of luck with that driver.

Well it's one of the attached,
I can grab another mouse at some point and try. And yes I've tried CTmouse but no luck sadly.

It seems to me problems like this aren't so uncommon; I can remember having some frustration with it back in the day. There was some lengthy discussion about this over here:
How do you get a serial mouse working

As noted in that thread, rather than messing with drivers, you should be able to open a standard terminal program on the relevant COM port and communicate with the mouse that way.

Jorpho wrote on 2020-11-18, 20:51:

It seems to me problems like this aren't so uncommon; I can remember having some frustration with it back in the day. There was some lengthy discussion about this over here:
How do you get a serial mouse working

As noted in that thread, rather than messing with drivers, you should be able to open a standard terminal program on the relevant COM port and communicate with the mouse that way.

Yeah it's super strange and annoying haha. My day job is IT and I was thinking it surely can't be this hard, I've used them before haha.
Thanks for the link, I will have a read and also try getting some serial feedback!

Do you have any modems installed? I had a Socket 5 system that would simply refuse to recognize the serial mouse in W2K and XP, but had no problems in 98. I think it was a modem conflict of some sort (forgot if the conflict showed in device manger) so I had to disable the modem. Even then, reinstalling COM1 didn't help, and I had to install a new serial port, COM4, to get the mouse to work.

NScaleTransitModels wrote on 2020-11-19, 10:27:

Do you have any modems installed? I had a Socket 5 system that would simply refuse to recognize the serial mouse in W2K and XP, but had no problems in 98. I think it was a modem conflict of some sort (forgot if the conflict showed in device manger) so I had to disable the modem. Even then, reinstalling COM1 didn't help, and I had to install a new serial port, COM4, to get the mouse to work.

Good tip, sadly no modem installed. I will have to post up what the device manager shows. But normally no mouse is visible

I recently ran into the same problems with my 386 I am currently restaurating.
Problem there was the header for the serial port. There are 2 standarts newer and older.
I copy you the records of my research - I hope the help you:

DB9 Female

1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9

IDC 10 Male

..........##
###########
#1 3 5 7 9#
#2 4 6 8 X#
###########

1: NC
2: RX
3: TX
4: NC
5: GND
6: NC
7: NC
8: NC
9: NC

idc10 - db9 (new) - db9 (old)

1 - 1 - 1
2 - 6 - 2
3 - 2 - 3
4 - 7 - 4
5 - 3 - 5
6 - 8 - 6
7 - 7 - 7
8 - 9 - 8
9 - 9 - 9
10 - NC - NC

horstmueller wrote on 2020-11-19, 21:23:

I recently ran into the same problems with my 386 I am currently restaurating. Problem there was the header for the serial port. […]
Show full quote

I recently ran into the same problems with my 386 I am currently restaurating.
Problem there was the header for the serial port. There are 2 standarts newer and older.
I copy you my the records of my research - I hope the help you:

DB9 Female

1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9

IDC 10 Male

..........##
###########
#1 3 5 7 9#
#2 4 6 8 X#
###########

1: NC
2: RX
3: TX
4: NC
5: GND
6: NC
7: NC
8: NC
9: NC

gemessen:

idc10 - db9 (new) - db9 (old)

1 - 1 - 1
2 - 6 - 2
3 - 2 - 3
4 - 7 - 4
5 - 3 - 5
6 - 8 - 6
7 - 7 - 7
8 - 9 - 8
9 - 9 - 9
10 - NC - NC

This is amazing info! Thanks for that.
Is this sometime I can probe with a mustimeter, just on the plug side to check the pinout on the header/cable itself?
The case might be older than the motherboard given the config sticker under the case.

So just updating this one. I found something interesting.

I tested the mouse with one of my ThinkPad's knowing that I would have the same problem. There must be a way to make these things work.
I did a manual hardware detection, just like before.

It detected A serial mouse device, but show's it's not connected. Via the Device Manager screenshot.

After going into the control panel, and manually selecting a Serial Mouse device. I could reboot and use this within Windows.
I'm wondering if this has something to do with PS2 support on such desktops and laptops.

I will try the same method again and see how that affects it. I'm wondering if I can make this work in DOS as well.

Okay after some digging and getting my BIOS chip re flashed because I broke it.

Thanks to horstmueller for some clues, I think I have narrowed this down.
I'm documenting my findings in-case others come across this issue.

I found an old ISA card with IDE controllers etc. And used it on this same desktop to test with. Straight away the mouse was detected.
My PCI Serial card did not work, this is a much newer PCI card.

So the Pin Outs read the following voltages (see image).

Compare this to my Motherboard header, using the same cable.
The ISA Card as 9 pins, where as my motherboard header has 10. Also my other desktop has 10 pins as well, but the serial mouse works.

Pins 3 & 5 on my mainboard are different. I can only assume this is due to the standards used and what my mouse may support.
I will try and find a dedicated DB9 ISA card, or see if I can get the PS2 header working, as this currently isn't due to a pin type issue.
If I get any updates, I will share them.

Cheers guys!

Hey guys,
Project is wrapped up on this one. Thank you everyone for your help.

I shot a video of the machine as well, 2 parts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RODQwt4VoDc
Cheers 😀

lackofpatience wrote on 2020-12-20, 02:53:

Project is wrapped up on this one. Thank you everyone for your help.

So, did you come to a particular conclusion? Was it just a matter of having the voltage on pin 3 instead of pin 5?

Jorpho wrote on 2020-12-20, 05:20:

lackofpatience wrote on 2020-12-20, 02:53:

Project is wrapped up on this one. Thank you everyone for your help.

So, did you come to a particular conclusion? Was it just a matter of having the voltage on pin 3 instead of pin 5?

Sadly I never got a chance to test the theory, as I found my PS2 header was wired wrong. So I never got a chance to make an adapter to test it