Cursors Gone Wild

[Gary Wyngarden]

As a critical part of the navigation system on my boat, I use a Dell Inspiron 600m laptop interfaced with a handheld gps. I use Capn software and electronic charts.Periodically when I boot the computer, the cursor goes wild, flitting all over the screen and is totally uncontrollable with the touchpad, thus rendering the computer useless. This never happens when I have the computer at home. I have a second identical laptop which I keep in my office at home, but which comes along for redundancy on long cruises and the same thing periodically happens to it, again only on the boat.Any ideas on causes and cures will be appreciated.Gary WyngardenS/V Wanderlust h37.5

 

[RAD]

Gary,

The computer is seasick ;Dcouldn't help myselfRAD

 

[JoshGray]

possibly moisture

Gary,I have had that same problem with two Dell lappies, and my brother had that problem with his. Our solution was to buy Apple laptops. That doesn't help your situation, and since I think that moisture is to blame it wouldn't matter what brand you have. Since touchpads work off changes in capacitance that occur on the surface when you move your fingers across it, they are quite sensitive to moisture (or any conductor, try manipulating the cursor with a plastic pen instead of your finger). Seems like that could be a likely cause in a boat. Try a peripheral mouse or trackball.

 

[Windride27]

Moisture

The moist sea air is getting to it. Plug in a mouse and just use the mouse.I have the same problem with my Dell. Cheers,Dave.'Slipaway'Oday 27

 

[JoshGray]

vindication!

Glad to see that our "simul-posts" concurred, Windride!

 

[Gary Wyngarden]

Thanks, Guys.

I'll give the mouse a try. Hopefully it won't get seasick too.Gary WyngardenS/V Wanderlust h37.5

 

[Bill Roosa]

Concure with the others, moisture

I'm glad to see that you are taking a back up to your computer. Using a laptop on a sailboat as a "critical piece of navigation equipment" is heading down a road that if frocked with unpleasant consequences.Sailboats get wet everywhere. Unless you only sail in protected waters and on perfect days (in which case you really don't need a computer moving map nav display) you WILL get your computer wet. As someone who has done this (at the dock, don't ask) I would highly recommend you not use a computer as a critical piece of your navigation set up. They are just too delicate. It will crap out on you during a storm or when your least can afford it.In the Army we ran into this issue and we put our computers in side of white plastic trash bags. A couple of strategically placed rubber bands keeps the plastic against the screen so you can see it. The only problem we have encountered with this solution is cooling. The old 286 computers did not need a fresh air supply and didn't even have a cooling fan so sticking them inside a bag worked fine. The new intel chips HAVE to have cooling and all I can suggest is duct tape and a knife to make a port for the air. Of course this would also allow water in but it is better than leaving it exposed.Happy sailing

 

[Tsehum Pete]

Maybe Electrical

Gary,Found my Dell Latitude D505 did not like being plugged into my little el-cheapo 175 watt Worst Marine Inverter. The inverter whistled. Have been told I need a new true-sine inverter to plug the Dell transformer into. Ho hum.... more cash. Maybe your laptop likes the more stable precise 110 volts AC power supply at home. My post is sugggesting a somewhat different solution than the others. All I could think of and probably wrong.Peter

 

[Donald6441]

using an inverter with a laptop power supply is

inefficient and unstable. The proper solution is to use a 12V DC-DC converter laptop power supply that converts to your laptops voltage. Look on the 110 AC power supply and see what it outputs. Then select one of these or of another manufacture:http://www.powerstream.com/Produz10.htm

 

[Seattle Scott]

Gary I have same general set up

Capn software with hand held GSP hooked to laptop. Same problem happened to me, I think the solution is found in the Capn trouble shooting or "Help" menu. My recollection was that it was not environmentally caused but something to do with the GPS into the USB port, where the computer thinks the GPS is a mouse.Question: Gary what to you do for Canadian electronic charts?PS: Nice pic and letter in SAIL.

 

[Bob Pullen HC-33 1981]

Seen it several times,

Hi Gary,I have installed nav systems, including the Cap'n in a substantial number of laptops and other onboard systems. It is what I do for a living. The problem is not attributable to the quality of your electricity, nor the moisture.The serial/usb device driver (used to receive the input from the GPS), eats up some of the same IRQ's that the touchpad uses. Hence the interaction & interference. We have noticed that if we free up a ton of RAM, by unloading Norton Anti-Virus, for example, the computer has time to catch up with the dueling constant inputs from the mouse and the serial/usb connector to your GPS. In other words, sure, an external mouse will alleviate it, but unloading Norton before booting up (there is a setting in the Anti-Virus to disable it's deployment upon boot-up) will cure it. The computer has a hard time receiving continuous input from both sources. Unload Norton and any other memory intensive apps upon boot up and before deploying the Cap'n.Good luck.Bob

 

[Seattle Scott]

Man I can't believe

I got a computer question correct and I dont' even know what an IRQ is/are.

 

[Brad4651]

crazy mouse

It's not moisture- it's a USB GPS mouse conflict Rosepoint Navigation has an excellent article on the fix for it. I'll try to attach the link, if I can't find it go to Rose Point Navigation than to Hardware. Good Luck Brad

 

[Gary Wyngarden]

Many thanks, again.

What a wealth of good information! Lots of good things to try. I was out for a daysail yesterday afternoon and booted up the computer three different times without an external mouse plugged in just to see if I could re-create the problem. Computer worked perfectly. Moisture was there in terms of damp sea air, but I hadn't turned the GPS on that feeds the computer--I knew exactly where I was so I didn't need it. Today I'll go back and turn the GPS on to see if I can re-create the problem that way and experiment with that. Thanks to all for your input. I'll let you know what happens.For Bill Roosa: We have used a laptop on our boats for navigation for years with great success. We keep it strapped down to the nav station below decks. We've been around Vancouver Island which involves about 300 miles of open ocean sailing. We've been in ten foot waves, had waves break over the bow with green water streaming down both side decks. We stay dry down below and the laptops have worked perfectly (current crazy mouse problem aside). That said we also carry paper charts for all places we go just in case and have three separate gps units on board.For Tsehum Pete and Donald: We are using the 12 volt connection (cigarette lighter type)on our breaker panel as power source. I bought from Dell a power supply that plugs into that that should be ok, but it's also one my hypotheses for a possible trouble source. However if I unplug that and run on my laptop battery and the problem persists, I can eliminate that as the source of the problem.For Scott: I got my Canadian Electronic charts several years ago before the pricing went wonky. The CD's are on the boat but I think the company name is NDI. Thanks for your comment on the pic and short article in Sail.For Scott,Bob and Brad: This seems the most logical source of the problem. I'll experiment this afternoon with booting the computer first and then turning on the gps and see if that works before disabling the serial port connection for mice. Thanks a ton.Gary WyngardenS/V Wanderlust h37.5

 

[Gary Wyngarden]

Outcome

So I was over on the boat this afternoon to experiment with the problem and possible solutions. I fired up the GPS and plugged it in to the serial port of my laptop. I plugged the laptop into the 12 Volt supply on my boat's breaker panel. Then I booted my laptop.Lo and behold, I have a crazy cursor bouncing all over. I unplugged the 12 volt source, putting the laptop onto it's own battery. No improvement. Then I unplugged the gps from the serial port. Immediately the cursor became well behaved. Plug in the GPS and cursor goes apes**t again.So then I unplugged the gps and restarted the computer, waited for it to boot up, started the Capn software, and only then reconnected the GPS. Everything worked great.I repeated this process just for my piece of mind with identical results.So my conclusions are that the power supply and moisture in the air had nothing to do with the problem. I also figure I can avoid the problem by having my laptop fully started up before connecting my GPS.Thanks once again for some very good information.Gary WyngardenS/V Wanderlust h37.5

 

[Bryce22345]

crazy cursor

Gary,the problem is actually a windows bug. the problem exists in both W2000 and XP. not sure about Vista since I don't run it. drove me crazy for a long while also. I think MS has a fix for it. might try searching their website.BryceS/V Spellbinder

 

[Brian D]

Conn... Sonar!

Crazy cursor.Is he going to port or starboard?(Name that movie)

 

[Bill Roosa]

The enemy below?

nm

 

[stuart22320]

The Hunt for Red October?

Conn Sonar! Crazy Ivan!

 

[Brian D]

Hunt for Red October

is correct. "Seaman Jones: Conn, sonar! Crazy Ivan!Capt. Bart Mancuso: All stop! Quick quiet![the ships engines are shut down completely]Beaumont: What's goin' on?Seaman Jones: Russian captains sometime turn suddenly to see if anyone's behind them. We call it "Crazy Ivan." The only thing you can do is go dead. Shut everything down and make like a hole in the water.Beaumont: So what's the catch?Seaman Jones: The catch is, a boat this big doesn't exactly stop on a dime... and if we're too close, we'll drift right into the back of him."