If the mouse is a PS/2, it is probably an IRQ 13 device. The easiest way to find out the cure to those IRQ collision/conflicts is to boot to the safe mode, then look at the device manager under system in the control panel. It is then you will see all the "phantom" devices that Bill Gate's "Plug and Pray" (not quite ready for prime time) programming created. If you see that you have 6 mice and 10 keyboards, you have found the root of the problem.
Anytime that you see the same device listed more than once when viewing the device manager via the safe mode, remove all instances of that device and shutdown then power back up and let the plug and pray have another shot. This will usually correct the problem.
The modem is best on Com2. Com2 and Com4 use IRQ3. Com 1 and 3 use IRQ4. IRQ3 is a higher priority Interrupt Request Line and is best used to give the modem highest priority. If your mouse has the connector that looks like a mini keyboard, it should not be treated as a serial mouse.
I think that holding shift F5 while booting will bring up the safe mode, if you are not configured for a start-up menu.
You can run always msconfig from the Start Menu, "Run" option and enable selective start-up.
I found that while beta testing all Bill Gates current retail versions of Windoze, it is best to have a way to untweak his team's latest/greatest snafus. The start-up menu gives you the chance to start windoze in various configurtations, start DOS (unless you have XP; no more DOS after that version) and provides a way to correct those sticky problems that seem to always come up when you are running an operating system on a computer that was designed specifically not to run that kind of operating system; but that is another story for later on.
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