serial mouse

Hello to all you Geeks'

I have tried to install XP on my HP 6638 desktop. The first time was a complete failure. The machine just wouldn't respond and my cursor did not work at all. The second time I installed XP the OS ran fine for about 3 days.
Then I tried to boot the machine and it just continually rebooted itself non stop. So I reinstalled the CD and changed the file system from FAT 32 to NTFS and installed a serial mouse that was with some older equipment that my cousin had given me to see if I could get any of it working. I only have a 533 Mhz CPU but upgraded to 256 MB of RAM. My question is what advantage does a serial mouse have if any? It seems to respond better than the PS2 mouse but that may just be in my mind. Well I do not want to jinx myself by finally getting to run XP. I have been running 98SE since 2001. It was just getting boring. If I do run into some unforseen trouble running the XP Professional I guess I will have to upgrade to a newer mobo and CPU. Also I had to install a soundblaster 5 into one of my PCI slots. I think my PC sounds better with the intergrated audio, the onboard audio. When I run the 98SE that OS does not use the soundcard.
This is all very strange to me and confusing also. I also thought with the soundblaster 5 card I could run two sets of speakers. What are the other 4 recepticles for? I know one is a microphone so that still leaves three open holes. Again if I can get some info from you Geeks I thank you. bluesteinm

 

Well, it seems yous meet the min. reqs. for winXP to operate.

However, for great performance you might want to upgrade everything to an athlon system.

As per your question... i think the only advantage a ps/2 has over a serial... is the plug and play.. with serial.. i believe you would have to reboot if you plugged it in after teh machine was already on.

As for PS/2 you can plug it in and it works just fine w/o rebooting.

Per your soundcard question.. i'm afraid i'm unsure of it myself.