stuttering/jumping/freezing mouse..and freezing keyboard..

[cluelessman]

Hey, my mouse has been acting nutty for around two weeks.. Every so often the pointer will start to stutter. If i dont give it a second to catch up and continue to move the mouse instead it will freeze entirely. At this point the keyboard will freeze as well but whatever game/application stills seems to be running fine, i just cant interact with the computer. This problem seems most likely to occur if im playing a game. Its not a memory issue though as it often occurs directly after startup.

Ive scanned, defragged, virus scanned, reinstalled mouse drivers, etc. PIII(800), 128mg, WinME

Any ideas? Im thinking i might have to reinstall WinME altogether but I just dont know. Is there any diagnostic software that could figure this out?

Thanks for any replies.


edit--forgot to mention that sometimes rather than outright stutter the pointer will become as slow as molasses and not recover from this state. Usually i have to reboot soon after as its a pain.

[Cricket]

Hi cluelessman,

Have you tried swapping out the mouse? If the problem goes away, your mouse is probably defective.

Have you cleaned out the Windows temp folders of temp files? You might want to clean out the Temporary Internet Files folder too.

Or You could have "spyware" on your PC. Go here and download Ad-Aware: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

Cricket

[LittleAura]

How many programs are running in the back ground at start up? I can't see that this would make that much difference, but worth a try. If you leave it for a while, does it work normaly?

[AlwaysUp]

Is this USB mouse? I had to chunk a Microsoft Opticle mouse that had a PS2/USB adapter on it. It was never very reliable. Got regular old PS2 mouse and voila....freezes and errors went away.

[cluelessman]

still having the problem

I had already tried different mice (from micrsoft wheel mouse to non-microsoft non-wheel) and that doesnt matter, it will still stutter and perma-freeze on occasion.

Also, i run almost no background applications to keep as much memory free for games as possible.

Anyway, im stumped. The fact that the mouse freeze will freeze the keyboard as well but not freeze the onscreen action makes me think its serious. But i just dont know.

i might try playing with directx, nvidia driver alternatives just to see.

[Jenni]

You said "playing a game"---does this game happen to be Unreal Tournament? Cause my brother had a problem with UT where he would lose all mouse/KB input to the game, but could still CTRL-ALT-DEL out of the game. Never did find a cure, finally just quit playing UT.

[morriswindgate]

Depending on the video card tat were several patches for Unreal. Go to the game software site and check for a patch that applies to your version.

[AlwaysUp]

Is this a PC you built? If it is a Gateway, HP, Compaq...you may find folks who are experiencing the same behavior or have a resolution for this. Most PC manufacturer sites have User Forums for their individual models. One other suggestion is to physically examine the PS2 header on the motherboard. I have seen a mobo or two with damaged header that affect both the mouse and keyboard. Have you checked the seating of your video adapter?

[cluelessman]

still having the problem...

Tried downgrading to directx 7.0 then back up again, no help either way. New drivers, no help, old drivers, no help.

Ive never played UT but it happens in any game and in just plain old windows or AOL as well.

As far as the manufacturer.. Dell, didnt build it myself. Its just over a year and a half old..

Anyway, stumped, stumped, stumped. Really out of options. Im assuming its hardware at this point. Im just waiting for it to irritate me to the point where I do a full WindowsME reinstall as a last effort.

[GaryRouth]

This is a really late post, but...

noticed a few Microsoft Knowledge Base articles you could check:

"Random Movements by Mouse in WinME" : Q267139 and Q280800

These two articles suggest changing the Control Panel settings
for Mouse movement over to the left (or "slow") as a workaround.

There's also the WinMe mouse.txt which might be on your PC (you can
run a quick look: from WinExplorer, go to the Tools menu, choose "Find"/
"file" and enter "mouse.txt" in the dialog box) ...It's also on
the MS Knowledge Base website.

...
Also, when installing and reinstalling all the different mice, did
you completely remove them each time? A quick look in Device Manager
should show only the current mouse you're using. Remove any others.

And...while in Device Manager, what IRQ is your mouse using? Is it
sharing it with another device? See if you can move the other device
to a different IRQ (especially if its a LAN card or modem)...

Most Dells use a MS Intellimouse with the Dell logo on it. If yours doesn't
have a wheel on it, having MSWHEEL.exe running in the background probably
won't help things.

...
Hopefully this is all wandering banter on my part, and you've already
fixed your problem. But if not, let us know
...Gary