P55-US3L - Erroneous double-entry of specific devices in Device Manager

[forumjoe]

I built and started using my P55-US3L desktop machine more than a year ago now and, apart from one or two post-boot oddities that have remained, it's worked fine. Recently, I've planned to install a replacement hard drive, installing everything on it from ground zero again, and so have been making preparations. The operating system (OS) is WinXP 32-bit and the machine is set up specifically as non-RAID.

I was just looking through the entries in Device Manager (DM) in WinXP again when I suddenly realised that there appears to be a couple of incongruities. First, although I use just the one USB-connected wired mouse, I appear to have TWO entries in DM for such a device:-

Human Interface Devices - Microsoft USB Wheel Mouse Optical, Location 0, driver 5.1.2600.2180, 1/7/2001.
Mice and Pointing Devices - Microsoft USB Wheel Mouse Optical, Location 0, driver 5.1.2600.0, 1/7/2001.

Should this be so, or should there just be one entry? On machines I've built and run before, there's only ever been one. Note that these pertain to the same bus location but have different driver versions. Is this an indication that I've wrongly installed the mouse?

Originally, I connected the mouse to the USB port before firing up the US3L machine and installing XP. At the time I was advised to set the BIOS to 'Legacy USB Device'. So, the mouse was connected and has remained connected ever since.

Hitherto, I'd only ever used a PS2-connected mouse on my computers, but with this USB mouse I was mindful that, normally, you only connect USB devices on Windows machines AFTER the OS, and therefore the device's software, has been installed. But that didn't seem to apply, as other than with the mouse how could I have configured XP during the graphical part of the XP Setup? With certain keyboard keys, perhaps? Should I therefore have plugged in the mouse only AFTER XP had fully installed? I'm clearly not the first person that ever installed a USB mouse when also installing the OS, so how precisely should it be done?

It very much looks like this double-entry of the driver has been the cause of my strange, random FDD and HDD accesses when clicking with the mouse just after boot-up.

The other double-entry in DM is of the monitor. Way back, before starting the installing of the various device drivers, I had noticed that WinXP was showing TWO different entries in DM for Monitor:-

Default Monitor
Plug and Play Monitor

I recall duly installing the appropriate graphics card driver and then installed the INF driver for the monitor I was using, installing it as an update to Plug and Play Monitor. At the time, I thought Default Monitor then automatically disappeared as an entry - but actually it's still there in DM.

It seems to me that, all the time I've been using my P55-US3L this last 12 - 18 months, the machine has been thinking it has TWO mice attached, as well as TWO monitors, and this may well explain the strange, uncontrolled accesses that I get just after boot up the machine. So, can anyone explain what I've been doing wrong, as regards the installation of my mouse and monitor? Quite clearly, something's either amiss with the motherboard drivers or the installation methods I used for the mouse and monitor were wrong.

[Gloup_Gloup]

Hi forumjoe, 

I see your use Windows XP.

If the computer is running, shut down Windows, and then turn off the power

Wait 30 seconds, and then turn the computer on.

 Start tapping the F8 key.
The Windows Advanced Options Menu appears.
If you begin tapping the F8 key too soon, some computers display a "keyboard error" message. To resolve this, restart the computer and try again.

Ensure that the Safe mode option is selected.

Press Enter. The computer then begins to start in Safe mode.

When the desktop appear and finish place icons...

go to Config Panel
go Performance and Maintenance
go to System
go to Hardware Tab, click Device Manager.

Click on Show hidden devices in (Viewing Tab )

Now check a double hardware like keyboard, mouse, etc...
Of  course, if you have relly 2 hard disk by exemple.. do not remove it...

ReCheck in Safe mode option, after REBoot....

When you are finished with all troubleshooting, close all programs and restart the computer as you normally would.

Come again for comment.

Gloup_Gloup

[Fatman]

Those entries in DM are normal. Nothing to worry about there 

[Dark Mantis]

Yes, normal entries. Besides I think most of us spend too much time questioning everrything on the computer. If it is working without problem why bother ?  

[forumjoe]

Hi there,

First, thanks for your various replies. I'm highly surprised that both of my findings in Device Manager are deemed normal. I think I've once before seen the two entries for the monitor, and then only temporarily, but I can't recall ever seeing those two entries for the mouse on an XP machine, only the one. For instance, I'm pretty sure there weren't two mouse entries when, before, I was using WinXP with my earlier non-Gigabyte machine. But hey, that was when the mouse connection was PS2, not USB, so maybe it's the mere fact of using USB that causes the double entry?

The slightly worrying aspect is that the drivers for these two listings for the USB mouse are different and since, Dark Mantis, I do still have spurious problems with this machine which are connected in some way with the use of the mouse, it's naturally made me wonder whether the two mouse drivers here are fighting each other, as it were. The only other explanation for two different mouse drivers having loaded would be that they are complementary in some way or another. But I can't imagine in what way, as the device is merely a basic optical mouse. Why would two separate drivers for a simple, bog standard mouse need to be loaded? Can you think of an explanation for it? Could it possibly be that the BIOS installs a mouse driver sufficient to be used in the WinXP Setup but then, later, Windows itself installs a further part to the driver? Just a thought.

You've not commented on whether you think my installation method for the mouse was correct. Is it a universally known fact that use of 'USB Legacy function' absolves the need to leave the initial connecting of the mouse until AFTER WinXP has installed and allows the mouse to function during the Setup of the operating system? If so, then once WinXP had installed, should I have disabled that legacy function?

As for the double entry relating to the monitor, I'm wondering whether that has come about because my monitor connects via a digital DVI interface but the Setup of WinXP assumes an analogue connection and indeed loads a default driver that's based on an analogue connection to the graphics card. Consequently, this has involved some swapping around of the DVI cables toward the end of installing the operating system and possibly has caused entries for both 'Default Monitor' and 'PnP Monitor'. Indeed, I've found with both this machine and earlier ones that I have to start the Setup of WinXP with an analogue connection to the monitor but then swap to the digital connection and install the proper driver just after the default driver is installed. Unless this is done, the screen goes blank and stays blank when it gets to that part of the WinXP Setup. I don't think graphics card designers (I've discussed the matter with my own) were able to find a way around this problem, as the solution lie in a change to WinXP, which Microsoft were unwilling to do.

[Dark Mantis]

Try going into the BIOS and disabling the entry for Legacy USB Devices and Legacy USB Storage. That might remove the mouse extra driver that's noted.

[forumjoe]

DM,

Yeh, that's a thought. I'll give it a go shortly.

[forumjoe]

I could see where you were coming from, DM, but unfortunately disabling 'USB Legacy Function' has had no effect on this double-appearance in Device Manager. In the BIOS of the US3L, there are just three USB settings - USB Controllers, USB Legacy Function and USB Storage Function. All three are simple enable or disable settings.

I say 'has had no effect'. Well certainly it's made no difference to the double-listing. However, thus far, I'm not getting the random FDD accesses I usually get just after boot-up and which are worsened if I click with the mouse. However, on that score it's perhaps as yet early to say whether disabling that legacy function has had any beneficial effect. For the present, I'm leaving it disabled.

Yes, when you made your suggestion I wondered whether perhaps the Windows Setup required a basic mouse driver and that conceivably enabling that BIOS legacy function at that time would have made that possible. But then perhaps once Windows had fully installed, Windows itself had installed its own full mouse driver. Thus, it was conceivable that the basic driver was no longer required. But now disabling that legacy function definitely doesn't remove one of the double entries in Device Manager. Hmm, it seems difficult to draw any sensible conclusion.

I'll try googling for it. This is not a hugely pressing problem. However, I would like to understand what's going on, especially as in due course I'll be reinstalling everything on a new HDD and clearly would like to put this matter right, if it isn't at present. Perhaps Fatman is correct, in that it's possibly normal to get this when you use a USB-connected mouse.

[Dark Mantis]

Have you tried removing the two entries in Device Manager and then let Windows find it/them again since you have modified the BIOS that is ?

[forumjoe]

In answer to your question about uninstalling both of them, DM, no, I haven't. I regard uninstalling a mouse driver as being something to be avoided if at all possible.

Meanwhile, I've been googling for information on these two listings in Device Manager. I've found nothing that describes their functions but what I have seen rather indicates that it is normal for two entries to be there.

Strange that, in all the years I've been using XP, I've never noticed that before. Perhaps the second one was added as an update to XP at some time.

I'll keep an eye on those pesky FDD accesses and will report back here if they reappear.

[Dark Mantis]

Well we learn as we go and even now I find things that catch me out and I hadn't noticed before. I run 64 bit Windows 7 and I have two entries in Device Manager for the mouse too.

[forumjoe]

If the wording in my US3L's user manual is to be taken literally, the USB Legacy Function that's configurable in the BIOS applies only to a USB keyboard. Under USB Legacy Function, the manual says:

"Allows USB keyboard to be used in MS-DOS (Default enabled)".

My keyboard is PS2-connected, my mouse USB-connected.

So, I guess this is why my theories, expounded earlier, hold no water and why disabling that function had no detectable effect on my system (well, at least as yet). It seems that using a USB mouse in WinXP (and maybe some other Windows operating systems also) inserts TWO entries for it in Device Manager, and that's okay. There's nothing more to it than that. From the little I googled, it appears that the Human Interface entry applies to a multitude of pointing/input devices, rather than just a mouse.

[Dark Mantis]

The Legacy USB is just a collection of drivers for use in the DOS environment before Windows loads it's own drivers. Whether you have a mouse etc connected really is irrelevant.

[forumjoe]

Can you tell me more, DM? For instance, what exactly are those legacy drivers and where and when would they come into use? (You've stated that they're 'drivers', so the question is 'what sort of drivers?' Drivers for what situations, functions or devices?). Would it be perhaps best to put that setting in the BIOS to Enabled and leave it permanently like that?

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

From my understanding of it they are just DOS type drivers that are loaded in the option is enabled so that you can have keyboard support before Windows loads it's own drivers. Sorry I can't help more than that.