I've got an odd problem with my Linux box. When I boot it up, it gets a certain way through the boot process (just after loading the 3w-xxxx driver), and then locks solidly.

It's not the 3ware driver. It's the mouse. If I turn the machine on without a mouse plugged in, it's fine. It comes up all the way.

Initially, I put this down to a dodgy PS/2 mouse port (blown fuse, something like that), and didn't worry about it -- the box used to run mostly headless anyway.

Now, however, I'm trying to get this thing up as a MythTV box, and so I need a mouse to use X (at least until I get it all configured properly).

I borrowed a USB mouse, because you can't hot-swap PS/2 mice and, as mentioned, it won't boot with a PS/2 mouse plugged in.

It turns out that it won't boot with a USB mouse plugged in, either. At least I can hotplug the USB mouse, but it's still a PITA.

Any ideas? The only clue I've got is that (on a fresh build of 2.6.10 -- not patched yet), the 3ware card gets IRQ12 without the mouse plugged in, and IRQ6 with it plugged in. On 2.6.9-2, I think it always got IRQ12, but still failed to boot.

Most perplexing. I can't go around replacing the motherboard, because I'm still skint after Christmas (and I'm saving up for a Hush box -- although the new Mac Mini does look tempting).