Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: PB 170 Trackball Problems
From: zaphod@vax2.winona.msus.edu (Gregory Talmo)
Date: 29 Dec 92 11:07:10 -0600
Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.misc
Distribution: world
Organization: Winona State Academic Computing

In article <1992Dec27.213600.9792@cs.wisc.edu>, dross@cambizola.cs.wisc.edu
(Dan Ross) wrote:
> 
> My mother's PB 170 4/40 w/ Apple modem had trackball and button problems 
> a couple months ago which were as follows:
> 
> - clicks on objects would not be registered appropriately occasionally,
>   in a variety of applications:  I tried it and so noticed the pointer
>   was right on the object being clicked--just nothing happened
> - the arrow cursor would move jerkily around the screen, as if the
>   trackball was dirty or as if the machine was doing a lot of background
>   work.  No, the machine had not gone to sleep, and power-saver was
>   turned off, and the trackball was clean (she hasn't used it that much,
>   either, to make it terribly dirty).
> 
> She sent it in and they replaced the trackball which SEEMED to fix the
> problem.  However, while playing with SimCity (1.4, the monochrome version),
> I noticed that again, with power-saver off, if I
> leave the trackball alone for a couple seconds, the machine goes into
> super-slow mode:  the animation all but stops, and the progress of the
> simulation becomes about 5 times a slow (there's a counter indicating
> the passage of simulated time).  Simply moving the trackball a bit 
> will restore it to full speed, and continuously moving the trackball 
> (going in a circle, for instance), will keep the game going at full tilt.
> 
> She mentioned that a problem she'd had before having the repair dones
> was that the insertion point in MS Word 4.0 would stop flashing, and it
> would take the machine a while to catch up if she started typing.  She
> also said the problem seemed to occur only after the machine had been
> on for a while.
> 
> It sounded to me like an ADB problem, but I don't know that much--are
> there faulty trackballs which bog the machine down or cause missed
> mouse events?  Anyone else have these problems?
> 
> I believe the only INITs are the Apple Fax, Quicktime, and ARA; she
> had tried it with them all disabled before sending it in, also.
> 
  Dan,
  The slowdown is normal.  It is a power saving feature of the 170. If you
go into the Portable Cdev, hold down the option key, and click on the text
of "Minutes Until Automatic Sleep" you'll be given a dialog that asks you
if you want the PB to rest or not.  Tell it not to rest, and the slowdowns
stop.
  The reason that the mouse stopped it, was becasue the machine slows down
after so many seconds of no input.  You give it input (moving the mouse)
and the machine comes right back.
  BTW all of this is in the manual that came with the PowerBook.

- Greg Talmo  (zaphod@vax2.winona.msus.edu)
                                  |The opinions expressed above are my own,
"A censor is a man who knows more |and do not necessarily reflect the
than he thinks you ought to."     |opinions, tastes, or policies of Winona
                - Granville Hicks |State University, its faculty, staff or
                                  |students.
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