Will a malfunctioning optical mouse wreak havoc on my PC, up to and including the BSOD?
No.
The blue screen of death isn’t something caused by external hardware. It was a bug/undocumented feature in the software of the operating system.
A malfunctioning optical mouse will only really ever affect the mouse’s function.
I could see a mouse driver potentially causing a blue screen. I’d file it under “unlikely” though, unless it’s a Razer product.
Theoretically it could, depending on the design of your PC.
If it’s an older PS/2 style mouse (which some folks do still have) then the mouse’s electrical connections are basically tied to the keyboard and mouse controller on the motherboard (generally included in the “chipset”). The PS/2 spec does not require any protection at all for these electrical connections, and a malfunctioning PS/2 mouse could theoretically destroy the entire motherboard. In practice, most motherboard manufacturers at least put a little bit of protection on the PS/2 port, but if you’ve got a cheaper motherboard, who knows. You may not have much protection there against faults.
The USB spec, in contrast, does include protection on the port, and theoretically a USB mouse should not be able to damage the motherboard or cause anything bad like a BSOD. The worst a USB mouse should be able to do is stop functioning properly, and possibly prevent other USB devices on the same root hub from working. For example your keyboard might not work until you unplug the malfunctioning mouse (separate ports on the PC are not always separate root hubs).
That said, not all motherboards are built according to the USB spec. Some motherboards have the 5 volt supply connected directly out to the USB ports with no buffering or protection whatsoever, and the USB data lines might not be properly protected either. A misbehaving mouse could not only cause a BSOD but could even damage the motherboard for these types of boards.
Most of the time though, no matter what type of mouse you have, the worst that happens is your mouse goes wonky and the cursor on the screen either stops or acts like it is possessed and starts going all over the place somewhat randomly.
Well, the reason I ask is because my PC, which I originally built like 5 years ago, with piecemeal hardware updates since then, has in the last couple of days or so been going PAINFULLY slow while loading windows (bar moving across the screen, so progress is being made… but it takes 5 minutes), and then it takes forever for all my icons to pop-up, etc when I am actually in Windows. When it finally loads, it is sluggish, and I have watched the machine do the BSOD and restart, and have left and returned to find it had shut itself down. I keep up with my regular maintenance and just because of the weirdness I did another round ahead of schedule i.e. , innards have been blown clean, anti-everything has been run and its clean, and nothing seems to be overheating(I don’t overclock or anything like that). The only abnormal thing that I can see wrong (besides the obvious) is my plain jane Microsoft Intellisoft optical mouse (USB) will constantly act like it is being plugged in and pulled out. The PC will make the “new hardware/hardware removed” sounds repeatedly and my cursor will/will not move in conjunction with all of this. I noticed this behavior first when I had the mouse plugged into my wife’s netbook (visiting inlaws / I hate touch pads). It was not as bad on the netbook, and got worse when I put it back on my PC, but being as it happened on two machines, it led me to think that trouble with the mouse is with the mouse itself. But I also am left to wonder if the problems are a)related and b) is it a mouse --> PC problem (PLEASE) or a PC–> mouse problem (I will cry).
Anybody have any thoughts? If you need more info I am happy to give it.
never mind - misread previous post, disregard
It is unlikely that your mouse is causing all those problems. However, it is very clearly not a case of your computer causing your mouse problems. If it is connecting and disconnecting often, this is probably a problem with the cable. You might be able to open it up and fix the connections, but you’d probably be better off getting a new mouse.
While constantly removing and pluginging your mouse will slow down your computer somewhat, it’s far more likely that your computer’s software needs to be cleaned out. It would be difficult to go into details, so I’d suggest finding someone who knows a lot about computers and have them clean things up for you and/or show you how to do it yourself.
The only thing I can recommend is a piece of software called Soluto, which attempts to automate the cleaning process. It will help you find things you don’t need so you can get rid of them.
Finally, to address the actual question in the OP: Yes, a mouse can ruin a lot of things. I have a USB mouse that will make the computer run slow until it is removed, and you’ll have to restart the computer to be able to hook up any other mouse. It’s not a hardware issue: the problem is that it works just enough that mouse drivers hang trying to use it.
From your description, I’d say the mouse bug is either:
- Being caused by the other “mysterious thing” causing the general slowdown/BSOD
- Completely coincidental
You can figure out which by borrowing another known-good mouse and using it for a few hours, see if the problem happen with that mouse as well.
Those problems sound most likely to be caused by bad RAM or a bad hard drive.
Burn yourself an Ultimate Boot CD (it’s free) and boot the machine off of it. Run the Windows Memory Diagnostic for a few hours. If it comes up with any errors then there’s at least one bad RAM module.
If it doesn’t find errors, boot off the CD again and run the manufacturer’s hard drive diagnostic (if you don’t know the brand of drive, try the Seagate one first; it will tell you).