I can't figure this one out.

I received this PC (the owner bought a new one, gave me this one) and on arrival the system definately needed a clean sweep.

All that aside though, this PC was just the tower and internal organs no mouse keyoard and all that (but I had all that anyway). I plugged it all togather and booted it up. Right away I could tell the PC was loaded with junk and very infested. I also noticed that the Mouse Cursor was right in front of my face but was not responding to my movements at all. So, everything I did was by Keyboard. Wiped the system, Fresh Install of XP Pro and updates and still No Mouse Action. Ok, maybe it's the mouse. Nope, tried a new PS/2 Mouse and nothing. Plugged in a USB mouse to the USB port and worked no problems. So the issue is pointing toward the PS/2 port, I am thinking.

With the PS/2 Mouse in, there is no mouse recognized in the Hardware List. There is no option in the BIOS for the PS/2 Mouse and no jumper on the board.

What could be the issue??

Did you try a PS/2 keyboard if that is available ?

You appear to have a bad PS/2 port as
you mentioned.

"Did you try a PS/2 keyboard if that is available ?"

Yes the Keyboard is also PS/2 and works flawlessly.

"You appear to have a bad PS/2 port as
you mentioned."

Can the Mouse PS/2 go out and the Keyboard side still work properly? (that is what is going on here)

Mouse and keyboard ports are two separate entities so yes, one could work and the other not.

The fact that windows sees a mouse, as evidenced by the pointer showing, means the port is enabled. Likely the pin connections receiving the mouse movement data are bad. Or if the jack was stressed by the mouse plug being pushed sideways, wiggled or whatever, the internal contacts may be reamed out and not making a good connection.

"Mouse and keyboard ports are two separate entities so yes, one could work and the other not.........Or if the jack was stressed by the mouse plug being pushed sideways, wiggled or whatever"

They may be "separate entities" but on this board they are in the same housing. The keyboard and mouse port both look to be the same as far as visual condition. As I can not see inside the housing (soldered to the board), I can not be sure that the mouse port has not shifted just the slightest to be damaged.

"The fact that windows sees a mouse, as evidenced by the pointer showing.."

The pointer is there but the mouse does not show up in the Hardware List. Also, under the Mouse settings in the Control Panel and under Hardware nothing is listed.

With everything that has been listed, am I correct to be absolute that the PS/2 Mouse Port is definately K.O.'d and I need to stick to a USB mouse with the PC?

Well, I'm not psychic but I don't see what else it could be. You've tried a new mouse with a fresh OS install and there is no bios PS/2 mouse control to fiddle with. Mice usually don't conflict with other hardware but I guess it wouldn't hurt to temporarily remove all the cards except video and see if that makes a difference.

You could boot with a dos or win 9X bootdisk and attempt to load a dos mouse driver. Since all the windows drivers and software won't be loading you might get a better idea if there was a conflict somewhere. If no mouse is detected it'll give an error message, although detection may not mean the port is good. (Bootdisks don't usually come with dos mouse drivers so you'd need to add one to the disk.)

If you'd switched the mouse and keyboard ports I don't think the keyboard would work so I don't think that could be the problem.

Using a USB mouse isn't a major change and would seem to be the way to go.

ToolPunk, welcome to the club because I had pretty much the same problem with an MSI K8T Neo-V motherboard about 2 weeks ago. Except it was with the keyboard. I had 3 keyboards, 2 of which were the same exact model. Neither of them worked, but the 3rd one did. All 3 work in other PCs. With either of the first 2 keyboards connected, the PS/2 mouse would behave erratically. This problem happened after I plugged a digital camera in one day to download pictures when the PC froze. The motherboard wasn't the same after that.

I ended up buying a PCI USB Card (since plugging my digital cam in ruined the onboard USB along with the PS/2 ports) and a PS/2 to USB adapter. This worked fine until the IDE Controller gave out! I wasn't able to access the BIOS this way though (enabling USB Legacy Support and USB keyboard support didn't work either).

Don't post if you ate razor blades for breakfast!