Optical PS2 mouse not working on many older machines

Old machine new optical mouse with PS2 plug. The mouse is frozen on desktop only buttons work. This problem has been reported in the forums from many people with no results. This is my first install of linux. During the module loading process at setup system clock the mouse light quits working. At desktop mouse is frozen...when right or left click mouse jumps to calendar and both buttons work on calendar but mouse is frozen. When rebooting into win98se...windows reports no mouse attached...seconde boot into windows restores mouse. I say this because it seems breezy does something with mouse in bios during module loading process. In forums people who have this problem report that it is issue with 2.6 kernal because their mouse worked fine in 2.4 kernel. zorg.conf shows mouse configured as imps/2.

Others report that changing to old ps2 non optical mouse fixes problem..or that using PS2 to usb adabpter plug fixes problem. I dont have these options and would just like to learn how to fix the problem.