Frozen /unresponsive mice

[john]

Okai, a techy one here thats been causing me issues since before Christmas.

I have some computers that all of a sudden don't respond to there mice. They will work one minute then, whilst working even they will just stick and freeze.

Reboot the PC and they are sometimes ok, other times they won't respond and gives the impression the PC has frozen, which it hasn't as the keyboard is fully responsive and if your clever like all us techs are, we can survive without the mouse for a good while to prove the point of "who needs a mouse anyway "

I have tried new mice, both of the PS2 and USB Variety, tried a reformat and re-build from scratch, always looks good then within 48hrs it seems to start the issue again and were back as bad as it was before. It seems that the Mouse option in device manager just disappears! and plugging / unplugging a USB mouse makes no difference to it, its just not in the list, and if you do a Scan for new hardware, it seems to lock the PC up 9 times out of 10, but it doesn't often appear.

Now strangely a friends home computer also started doing something very similar before Christmas and has the exact same problems, but they are very different machines.

The fact its a large number of machines in my mind rules out motherboard as its going to be VERY strange for about 30 motherboards to have gone weird in this way all at once, so I'm stuck for ideas!

Has anyone any thoughts?

[vikpaw]

don't totally rule out motherboards as a well known capacitor issue used to cause overheating and has been known to affect usb ports and mouse devices. so it's worth a quick check and it's not much effort.

we have a similar problem ongoing with 1 or 2 machines, and they are optical so you can tell when it's gone funny as the lights aren't on!

also, couple of Dell laptops having problems with touchpad freezing at random, only solution is to reboot, but found that plugging in usb mouse in that case worked. forums seem to indicate a driver issue, so that could be an avenue to investigate with your problem.

[mac_shinobi]

what motherboards have they got ?

[kestrel1]

You could try a live Linux CD. If the mouse works okay then it is most likely a driver issue. If not then you want to look at the mobo.

[john]

don't totally rule out motherboards as a well known capacitor issue used to cause overheating and has been known to affect usb ports and mouse devices. so it's worth a quick check and it's not much effort.

we have a similar problem ongoing with 1 or 2 machines, and they are optical so you can tell when it's gone funny as the lights aren't on!

also, couple of Dell laptops having problems with touchpad freezing at random, only solution is to reboot, but found that plugging in usb mouse in that case worked. forums seem to indicate a driver issue, so that could be an avenue to investigate with your problem.

The machines have optical mice on them and they stay light up so they are still obtaining power from the machines, just no data signal to make it move.

what motherboards have they got ?

The work ones are Biostar ones (can't remember the model but they are Biostars) and they are now into there 3rd years of use and the one in my friends will be an MSI and thats probably around 18 months old.

You could try a live Linux CD. If the mouse works okay then it is most likely a driver issue. If not then you want to look at the mobo.

I'm wondering if there was a MS update in Novmeber / December that upskittles these machines, as in both cases they were working perfectly until around November / December and then they just started being very random around the same time, and what I find strange and spookey is its my friends and works at a similar time.

I will try a Live Linux CD if I can work that out as I've never used one before as i've had no need.

[vikpaw]

good theory about the ms update,

perhaps see if you can get your friend to system restore his home pc to start of november and see if that makes a difference.

[john]

Rolled the machine back to the end of October to make very sure it was well before the issue as we are 99.99999% sure that my friend didnt have the issue then and it still appears to be causing issues Going to try it with a Live CD and also ERD Commander disk to see what it does on them.

But doing a more in-depth google research it seems that some people have reported for a long while that the pointer actually detaches from its icon in that the icon on screen sticks but if you keep moving the mouse it actually is still moving just without an icon!!! So I will also try they theory out, unfortunalty in all the cases I read online last night they never found a solution to the issue

[vikpaw]

how bizarre!

so presumably in your case, even though the pointer appears not to move, you can actually take it to the top of the screen and operate the menu, or onto the task bar and click on the icons...?

have you tried remote control software to see if that can kick it into action. maybe if there is something funny going on with the video driver or graphics, then using something like VNC to remotely move the mouse might bring it back to life..

[john]

nope the mouse is as dead as a dodo move the mouse as much as you like and it goes nowhere and niether does a invisible one its defunct.

Anyway tried those boot disks, same issues, so ive been dealing with MSI who make the mobo in my friends PC and they have said said strange one that so they are going to change it out if its still in warranty as we have worked out that it doesnt like the PS2 controller and one of the USB ones as I can use a usb mouse on one of the front ports but they said it would be run off a different chipset on the board, so its weird!

Remote Controll at work doesn't make any difference its as stuck as stuck can be.

[vikpaw]

If remote control doesn't work, then that PC is hurting really bad. I'm at a loss, it must have had a truly major infarction.
Just hope it's not an air borne virus else your other PCs may be at risk!