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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.
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