Mouse gone wild.

[bigjimaz]

My sister has a friend who is having a problem with his mouse pointer. It moves by itself across the screen when he's not touching it, then, seemingly on a whim, it shoots to the upper left corner of the screen and quits responding. The only thing that will solve this that he has found is to reboot. This sometimes happens minutes after the reboot and sometimes it won't happen for days. Anybody want to tackle this one? He's running a generic pc with XP pro, SP2. It does it no matter if he's using the optical, wheel or wireless mouse. He has all 3 types.

[Broomjockey]

By optical, wheel, and wireless mouse, I assume all three are not using balls? If so, there's three options I can think of.
1. Corrupted mouse driver (reinstall from source)
2. Damaged mouse port (try a different port)
3. Dirty mouse/mousing surface which is reading the dirt as movement, and then somehow buggers the program when it does the "corner dive." (clean the snot out of both the surface and the mouse, making sure to get up near the laser/optical spot.

[NightAngel]

Huh, I'm having mouse problems also. All of a sudden yesterday my mouse just decided not to work- which was really annoying because the character in my game died a horrible, firey death.

So, I made sure the cord hadn't come loose- nothing. I cleaned everything- nothing. I rebooted and it worked fine for a bit then stopped.

Got out the old ball mouse. Worked fine for a bit- then nothing.
Cleaned the mouse (EW!)- nothing. Rebooted- worked fine for a bit then died and took my character along with it- again.

Re-installed the mouse drivers.
Same thing.

[Shabo]

NightAngel, are you using a PS2 mouse or USB? PS2 is a round connector and USB is a regular USB connector. If both of those mice are PS2, try a USB. It could be that your PS2 port is dying. If one was a USB mouse and the other PS2, then it might be a valid excuse to upgrade your mobo so you can get that vid card you were talking about in another post... (I love convenient excuses to upgrade my hardware!). Also, if it is PS2, make sure your computer is shut down anytime you plug/unplug it. You run the risk of frying the mobo if you don't. USB is made to be hot-swappable, so you don't have to shut the computer down for that.

Bigjimaz, same question. Are all the mice using the same connector? Is the PC a laptop, and if so, does it have a trackpad, nub (literally looks like an eraser off of a pencil), or both? Is it a separate monitor/tower? If so, try different ports.

Another option for both of you would be reformat the hard drive, but that's assuming it is a software problem. The only times I've seen mice pointers jump around like that is when there is a hardware problem, the trackpad on a mouse was disgustingly dirty, the lid of the laptop was shut and screwing with something (she had an external monitor with wireless keyboard/mouse combo), and the mousepad design played tricks with the laser/optical camera. (Tell me Dell, who decided that HOLOGRAPHIC CHECKERS that created a reflective surface were a good design for your mousepads when you were shipping out LASER MICE? Genius award needed there.) Anywho, let us know more details or whether the fixes worked. Good luck.

[bigjimaz]

When I said wheel in my original post, I meant ball. Sorry for the misinformation. I called the future brother in law. He says that no matter what conection he used (USB, PS2) it was doing the same thing. He also said that he removed and reinstalled the mouse software for all 3 different mice (at different times) and the result was the same. He is only running the software for the current mouse in use (plus the driver included with windows) and doesn't have any idea how to reformat the hard drive. The mouse pad he uses is non-reflective and has a matte black surface. Two of the three mice are brand new and aren't dirty and the third has been thoroughly cleaned. His PC is a desk top model. The wandering problem has been constant since he got the computer a little over a year ago, but has worsened with time. The shooting to the upper left is new, starting about a month ago.

[Seshat]

Presuming that each mouse has a different cable or a different wireless receiver, I'd be inclined to blame the port.

Here's why:
* he's reinstalled the drivers, so the drivers are probably not it.
* the same fault happens with multiple mice, each with a different driver. Probably not the mouse, and not the driver, then. (If it was a different fault with each mouse/driver combo, it would be more likely to be the mice/drivers.)

The only things that are consistent over the faults are the base OS software, the hardware for the machine, and the mouse pad.

Try using a different mouse pad. It's an unlikely cause, but it's going to be the cheapest and easiest solution. If that fixes it, great!

Try using a different hardware port. It's the most probable cause of those left. If you have more than one USB port and a USB mouse, use another port. If you have a PS2 mouse and no other PS2 ports, but do have a USB port, use a USB mouse. If you have a USB mouse, no other USB ports, but do have a PS2 port, use a PS2 mouse. If you only have one possible port, you have problems. Talk to your local computer-geek computer hardware shop.

If using a different port makes no difference, then there's probably a fault in the base OS software or the machine hardware. This is both the least likely and probably the most expensive/time-consuming problem, so let's pray we don't get there.

[NightAngel]

Well, my mouse problems seems to have cleared up. I think my laser mouse (whatever) actually just died. I think, MAYBE, the ball mouse had something stuck in with the ball and rollers. I cleaned it before I used it and there was a LOT of nasty stuff in there.

So, perhaps I knocked some dirt loose and it got stuck and now it's worked itself out?

Thanks for the advice everybody.