Bookmark
Page

Possessed Mouse

This week we had a tech support inquiry from a customer who was having problems with his mouse pointer. Sometimes it would get ‘stuck’, and other times it would seem to move of its own accord. Many of us have seen this at one time or another, and unfortunately there is no one single cause we can point to every time and say “this is it!” What we can do though is give you a list of 10 different causes, and one or another of these will be the culprit in about 98% of the cases.

1. Dirty Mouse – This is the most common cause of a jerky mouse, and it affects everybody who uses a mouse with a roller ball. Dust and dirt gets picked up by the ball and transferred to the rollers, where it tends to accumulate in bands that interfere with smooth operation. Open the bottom cover of the mouse and scrape off the dirt that has accumulated around the roller bars. You can also use compressed air to blow out any loose dirt, and wipe the ball clean with alcohol to restore its traction to your mouse pad. In a few weeks or months you’ll need to clean the mouse again, unless you invest in a new optical mouse.

2. Virus Infection – There have been reports that some viruses affect mouse performance. If you have a virus, a jerky mouse is probably the least of your worries. You shouldn’t rely on this as indication of virus infection, but in case you needed one it is a very good excuse to update your anti-virus program and start scanning for viruses.

3. Driver Issues – Suspect this cause if you just swapped for a different mouse. Also, when you are installing an OS it normally uses a generic mouse driver that might work well enough to get you going, but is less than optimum for the long haul. A new mouse will almost always come with a new driver, but if you don’t have it, identify the correct model of your mouse and then go to manufacturer’s website to search for the most current driver applicable for your operating system.

4. Device Conflict – It is possible that a device that you just installed is causing some erratic conflict with your mouse. Try removing that last item you installed and see if the problem goes away. You can also check Control Panel/System/Device Manager and investigate any warnings or conflicts it shows.

5. Known Resident Programs – Be aware of how many resident programs and utilities are running in the background. There are start-up utilities that always load in your memory when you boot your system, and you add to that load when you start opening applications. If your system does not have enough available resources to manage all these apps running at the same time, it will surely affect your mouse movement. Another phenomenon that can occur is that you click away with nothing happening, and then while you are sitting back scratching your head, suddenly all the mouse clicks and keystrokes that you have made will execute in a second.

6. Unknown Resident Programs – Viruses come under this category, and so do spyware and adware programs. Not only do these unwanted hitchhikers steal resources, they also steal information about your system and your web browsing habits that they send over the Internet to their evil masters. A few weeks ago we discussed how to detect and eliminate spyware and adware, and if you missed that tip you can find it on our website.

7. Incompatibility Issues – There are a few utility programs that can affect mouse behaviour even when the system has enough resources. Examples are some anti-virus programs, firewall programs, and other utilities that get installed with particular pieces of hardware. Isolating the guilty program requires a process of elimination. You can use MSCONFIG (or sometimes the program itself) to prevent each program in turn from loading at Start-up. Once your mouse starts to move smoothly again, then you have found the bad boy. Go to that vendor’s website and search for patches or updates to fix the problem.

8. Insufficient Memory – Many users have observed how much smoother everything runs after they have just added more RAM to their computer. As discussed in #5, memory gets used up as you open more applications. If you don’t have enough memory, your operating system starts to use more of your virtual (or scratch) memory on the hard drive. One clue that this is happening is that the LED indicator on the drive will be blinking furiously as the OS shuffles blocks of data in and out of RAM. This is called thrashing. Another indicator is that sometimes you’ll move the mouse and the mouse pointer won’t respond for a moment, or it will feel like it’s dragging its heels as you push it across the screen with effort. Memory is so inexpensive now, it’s not worth putting up with the aggravation of these little annoyances. My rule of thumb is: whatever Windows OS you are running, install 4X the amount of RAM that Microsoft says is the minimum requirement.

9. Preventive Maintenance - There are a few routine actions to keep your system performing its best. One is to make sure you frequently monitor your start-up programs or run “MSCONFIG” to delete unnecessary programs at start-up. Defrag your hard drive at least quarterly. Monitor your system resources and see if you need to upgrade your computer. And please, be cautious in installing freeware or shareware that could also install hidden spyware.

10. Unstable OS – We had one system in our lab with very capable hardware (an AMD 2.6GHz Athlon with 726MB of DDR RAM) that performed very poorly with Windows 98SE. You could turn it on and leave for a coffee break, because it would take almost 5 minutes before that hourglass became a mouse pointer. Once up and running, the mouse would still freeze once in a while even if it was just using a simple email client program. Defragmenting the drive, closing all un-needed background programs, it seemed nothing would motivate this sluggish beast until we upgraded it to Windows XP Pro. The computer never had the mouse problem again and rebooting now takes less than 30 seconds to complete. Windows 2000 and XP have drastically improved their memory management system to better optimize your system resources when multiple apps are running. We grumble too at the cost and hassle of one upgrade after another, but sometimes newer really is better.

Disclaimer - The Micro 2000 Tech Tip is a free service providing information only. While we use reasonable care to see that this information is correct, we do not guarantee it for accuracy, completeness or fitness for a particular purpose. Micro 2000, Inc. shall not be liable for damages of any kind in connection with the use or misuse of this information.