Wierd Behavior Mouse and Defrag

[tacoeater]

Customer called to say that her cursor was changin' to a strange dual rectangle. I stopped by to see. Yup, strange rectangles, two of em, side by side. And when you move the mouse the left side of the screen also displays some strange bars which move in harmony with the strange cursor. I initially suspected video hardware or driver. I brought the puppy to my shop and started trying to get it fail. Nothing, like the car that won't act up at the mechanic's place.
I decided to defrag just to keep it running a while longer and something really strange happened. The screen saver was on and I moved the mouse to reveal the progress of the defrag display. Defrag was switching back and forth like crazy, on it's own, between pause and resume. I finally broke into it's determined mischief with repeated ALT F4.
What do you suppose is happening here? Customer had also said that the internet seemed to slow down or stop occasionally then resumed. This Win98SE install was only 28 days old. AVG running and updated, spybot running and updated, spywareblaster running and updated.
Now do you think this is a motherboard problem? Biostar M6VLR Socket 370.
Please advise,
Alan

[EzyStvy]

When you go into Control Panel->Mouse->Pointers do the pointers look standard pointers?

[glc]

All VIA drivers installed?

[tacoeater]

yes standard pointer, everything looks normal there.

what about the unusual pause resume pause resume pause resume on the defrag. this happens lightning quick.

now the computer is turning itself on from a total powered off state.
that sounds like power supply.

Help!

[GaryRouth]

It does seem like a good idea to put a tester on the power supply & see how it reads.

I've had some luck with "value" motherboards experiencing power regulation problems by turning off the Spread Spectrum item in the Bios (select "Disable"). I also disable all bios power management except ACPI, and let Windows handle that. Check that "Wake on LAN" and other "Wake" events are disabled as well in the Bios Power Management (usually LAN, modem, PCI, etc.)

One old GVC board a customer brought me had the turning on by itself problem: I flashed the Bios with a newer version, and it finally stopped. [Before we flashed the Bios, it didn't matter what setting the "wake" events had, it would turn itself on for no apparent reason, even when nothing was connected other than the video card/monitor/& keyboard].

Just a few thoughts.
. . . Gary

[for some of the other behavior, just to see, I'd try a different mouse - perhaps even a different sort of mouse (ps/2 if the current one is USB) - and check for "ghost mice" listed in Device Manager in Safe Mode & remove any that shouldn't be there]

[tacoeater]

gary,
i really liked you reply and your reference to "value"
motherboards. whether we like it or not the computers we get in the shop have to be dealt with including pcchips and biostar, etc. i can remember when it was way too common to see a negative slam of these products in our forum and i think "value" is such a much nicer way of saying that there are better products!
i have tried a different ps2 mouse and tried a usb mouse. the thing is that all the other weird things this computer is doing have started since i brought it to the shop, the defrag crazy and the turning itself on.
the last thing i am going to try is replacing the SE with XP just to see how it behaves.
if anyone has any other ideas about the strange behaviors please let me know anyway.
thanks,
alan

[tacoeater]

glc,
i am guessing that this was installed with the cd that came with the motherboard and the via would have probably been installed.
i went to biostar and there were no newer drivers available. anyhow the customer provided this cd that came with the motherboard so i' guessing those drivers were installed.
thanks,
alan