ipw is the Intel Pro Wireless 2100 driver
and usb, I am sure you can guess.

ipw driver's page
[url]http://damien.bergamini.free.fr/ipw/index.html[/url]

when if_ipw module is loaded the usb mouse gets knocked off.  I figured that it was the mouse driver's fault, but it turns out that usb as a whole gets screwed up.  I found this by removing ums from the kernel config and various other drivers to see which was the source of the problem.  After loading if_ipw, usb doesn't even respond to the devices when they are plugged in.

I am currently running FreeBSD 5.4

LIGHTBULB# dmesg | grep usb
usb0: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-A> on uhci0
usb0: USB revision 1.0
usb1: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-B> on uhci1
usb1: USB revision 1.0
usb2: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-C> on uhci2
usb2: USB revision 1.0

LIGHTBULB# dmesg | grep uhci
uhci0: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-A> port 0x1800-0x181f irq 11 at device 29.0 on pci0
usb0: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-A> on uhci0
uhci1: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-B> port 0x1820-0x183f irq 11 at device 29.1 on pci0
usb1: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-B> on uhci1
uhci2: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-C> port 0x1840-0x185f irq 11 at device 29.2 on pci0
usb2: <Intel 82801DB (ICH4) USB controller USB-C> on uhci2

LIGHTBULB# kldload -v if_ipw
Loaded if_ipw, id=9
LIGHTBULB# kldstat -v -n if_ipw
Id Refs Address    Size    Name
9    1 0xc22b6000 9000    if_ipw.ko
        Contains modules:
                Id Name
                165 pci/ipw


any clues as to why this happens?  At the moment I'm wondering if usbd has something to do with this...I am going to try and mess with that now

No, it wasn't usbd
it is definately usb

LIGHTBULB# usbd restart
usbd: Could not open /dev/usb, Device busy