[NTLUG:Discuss] sluggish mouse when burning dvd

[Chris Cox]

Jack Snodgrass wrote:
> My mouse starts to crawl ( and jump around the screen to catch up )  when I 
> burn a DVD and try and use my mouse at the same time. The CPU load and CPU usage
> are low, the browsing performance is fine, nothing seems 'slow' but
> the mouse. As soon
> as the DVD is done, mouse response is back to normal? This is a
> optical mouse connected
> via a PS2 type port. 
> 
> Anyone have any ideas? 

You do not have DMA on the DVD device.  In PIO mode the CPU is doing
a lot of work.

Is the device IDE?

Then try (as root):

hdparm /dev/hdc   (replace with your device)

and see if it says that DMA is enabled.

To try to enable it...

hdparm -d 1 /dev/hdc (replace with your device)