mouse dies when kdm is triggered

[Jim Pazarena]

I have an AMD-64 laptop, and have 8.1-AMD64 loaded on it.
 From the CLI, the mouse (enabled thru rc.conf) seems to
work fine <altho you can't actually USE the mouse on the CLI>.
It's a touchpad mouse, Asus M70V laptop.

When I trigger the GUI (with KDM), the appropriate login
screen loads, but the mouse is dead and so is the keyboard.

I have to press the power button just to get the machine to
power down.

Suggestions greatly appreciated.