Laggy mouse movement?

Hello,

I have had my wireless optical microsoft mouse for over a year now and everything's been fine and dandy, until today.

When booting up the PC I noticed that the mouse movement on my desktop and when using any other application is quite laggy/ jumpy rather than smooth as it should be.

I have no other applications running, the battery is good, as is the signal. The settings for the mouse are as I've always had them.

Any ideas what this could be and how I go about correcting?

Cheers in advance
Stevie

Have you got IntelliMouse running? For some reason, my MS wireless mouse doesn't respond as smoothly without Intellimouse running.

Never heard of IntelliMouse so I guess not.

Sorry, I meant IntelliPoint. Their mouse software anyway.

http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/mouseandkeyboard/Download.mspx

did you check the batteries. When power starts to go down, they get like that. I know, obvious. But people often forget to check them.

Hmmm looks like it is Intellipoint drivers but I have never had an issue with this in the past so can't be a driver issue surely?

Batteries say Good and I just tried another set to be sure.

Stevie

Don't count on that -- Microsoft does occasionally push driver updates through windows update as well, so it's possible that something changed without you knowing it.

Since this problem didn't start until today and if your OS is Windows XP, then you could try a system restore to a couple of days ago, to rule out any software drivers or settings:

Start -> Program Files -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System restore

If the problem persists after the restore then it is probably not a driver issue.

- Did you check the sensor at the bottom of the mouse to make sure it's not dirty or gunked up? If so, clean with a q-tip or something
- The optical mice often have problems if the surface underneath is too reflective. Did anything change there?
- Do you notice any difference if you put a piece of paper or something under it?
- More farfetched, but worth mentioning: I've seen an optical mouse start getting choppy on a poor quality desk where the surface wasn't entirely straight anymore, but started to curve a bit. Due to the shape of the surface, the sensor wasn't always flush with the desk anymore but hovering slightly over it in places which greatly affected the accuracy
- Did you happen to install any other wireless equipment close by? It's possible for a standard 2.4GHz wireless phone, keyboard, wi-fi router or even a microwave to interfere with the signal of your mouse.
- Have you tried re-syncing your mouse with its base station? Doing so often will get it to scan for an pick the strongest frequency within its range, so it you have interference issues you can often resolve them that way.

Thanks xlsior ... I leave my machine on all the time ( months on end ) and when shuting down yesterday morning it did some auto updates. This could be my issue.

I'll try the system restore. Call me dumb but while I do a fair bit of programming I've never done something like this before. Will this effect anything else I've been doing?

Stevie

XP makes automatic restore points. Each time you install a 'designed for XP' program it will make a system restore point for you, and it also does one on its own every couple of days or so.

Doing a system restore will roll back any .EXE's and .DLL's that have been installed/replaced since the restore point, and also roll back changes to the registry since that date.

Email, documents and data won't be affected, only installed programs.

In my book, system restore is pretty much the only real advantage that XP has over Windows 2000.

(Can be really useful to clean out spyware and such too if you know you got infected with something... There's almost no way it can survive a system restore)

Sorted with the system restore!!! Thanks alot xlsior. The trouble is I'm gonna get this next time windows updates when I reboot. Is there any way to tell which of the 5 due updates is effecting the mouse?

Thanks again!
Stevie

you could go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com and see which updates are actualy there. do a manual install instead of an automatic one, unchecking updates that look like they might be driver-related.

Ok, so 5 or 6 restores later I'm getting sick of this. I have no idea what it is in the XP updates are affecting the mouse drivers and I'm loathe to turn off the automatic updates incase there is something I really need. Are the updates really that important?

I did download the newest optical drivers but I can't install them without deleting the older ones. As I don't have a spare mouse I guess this means I'm going to have to buy one just for this purpose?

Daft question but like the Miggy are there keyboard controls for moving a mouse about on a PC?

Cheers
Stevie

Yes, but they're a bit rubbish.

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/training/windowsxp/mousekeys.aspx

I get this very regularly with my Belkin wireless optical mouse.
It works good for a few days then goes into jerk-o-matic mode.
The cure for me is to remove the batteries, wait several seconds, replace the batteries, then re-establish communications with the receiver (by pressing the little button under the mouse).

I just leave the rear cover off the mouse because I end up doing this procedure all the time.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Are the updates important? Given that they routinely contain fixes for exploits that allow anyone on the planet to break into your computer and run whatever spamserver they feel like it on there doing their dirty work, I'd say "yes, they really are that important".

On average it takes less than 15 minutes know before an unpatched original XP installation (without the servicepatches) is hacked, simply by hooking it up to the internet and not doing anything. (Just do a google for a plethora of articles describing exactly that)

If you are behind a firewall or router using NAT the danger of getting broken into if your machine is unpatched is less, but you will still be very surceptible to websites doing fishy things exploiting internet explorer and scripting engines and the likes.

without the updates it's just a matter of when your machine is going to get broken into, not 'whether'.

The updates aren't critical updates, so you shouldn't be getting them unless you're doing a custom patch. I'm certainly not seeing those particular updates coming through.

I suggest, though, that you go to the Microsoft Update site and manually disable those particular updates. They should be in the Hardware section.

WTF, my mouse is working fine again!!

I didn't do a thing other than hit sleep on the keyboard and then go back into XP. Wierd - maybe it isn't a driver thing after all?!