I recently bought a new Microsoft Intellipoint mouse and installed the accompanying software (v4.0 in case it matters).
A few times, the mouse pointer has moved independently of my moving the mouse. Several times, it has moved from somewhere near the middle all the way to the left side of the screen, a couple of times just an inch or so in an apparently random direction. I am able to move the pointer normally after this happens.
I don’t have “snap to” or any other options enabled that would cause independent movement of the pointer. It doesn’t seem to happen when any particular program is running.
This isn’t so much a problem, as it hasn’t yet interfered with normal operation of the computer, it’s just really spooky. Has anyone experienced this or heard of it and have any idea what might be causing it?
Yes!
I have the same problem. Although I’ve never had it scoot all the way across the screen.
I think I have an Intellipoint as well and I’m running Windows2000.
To this point I’ve been attributing it to the pure evil of Microsoft (specific mechanism not specified). I’d be interested to learn any other alternate explainations.
Might want to check to make sure nothing has gotten caught around the mouse’s ball: small chance, but worth a shot. (Now that does not read right. Ah well.)
Another long shot: double check the mouse ball. Is it lopsided? Center of gravity not in the center?
[sup]The above assumes you are not using an optical mouse, of course.[/sup]
Also, does this happen if you just let the computer sit there, and do nothing, or if you are typing something? If it happens while you’re typing… uhh… ‘mouse keys’ might have gotten turned on. Only thing I can think of.
What else. Driver oddity? Have you checked Microsoft’s tech support area to see if perhaps there’s an article there about this?
And, what The Controvert said, but that looks like that’s not an issue with you, Geobabe.
Worst case, blame it on the phase of the moon, coupled with the rise of Venus against the descent of Jupiter. Sacrifice a chicken or two.
__
<< Do I look like a freakin’ people person? >>
Well, hate to say this, but yes, it does do that. I have the Intellimouse Optical, and mine will do that at times as well. Doesn’t matter the OS(as long as it’s a Microsoft OS), and I’m at driver level 3.2. It just does that. Being a computer tech, I hate to answer stuff that way, but, that’s the only answer I know to give.
It happens here on this computer at work too. It usually moves an inch or so left, sometimes downward.
At home (where I have a non-microsoft optical mouse), it doesn’t happen. However, if I turn my scanner on, it will happen, a lot. My mouse is ps/2, but my scanner is USB. I haven’t figured out the cause, but there’s definitely a correlation.
It is probably just the optical tracking system screwing up. I have one of those mice, and though it works excellently most of the time, it is very easy to confuse it with patterns (or lack thereof) on the mousing surface, fast movements, etc. Sometimes I will not be touching the mouse and the pointer will wiggle back and forth for a few minutes, I guess because the mouse is right on top of a spot that makes the eye think it’s moving a little bit.
There was a large batch of defective Intellipoint mice, MS will replace them. Consult MS to see if your mouse is affected (they know the serial numbers of defective product).
This behavior can occur if both of the following conditions are true:
The external mouse is connected to the PS/2 port on your computer.
The internal pointing device uses the PS/2 port on your computer.
If both of these conditions are true, a limitation of the PS/2 port causes a conflict
between the pointing devices. The internal pointing device sends three bytes of data
through the PS/2 port, and the external mouse sends four bytes of data through the
PS/2 port. However, a PS/2 port is able to receive only six bytes of data at a time.
Search around at Microsoft, you might find better answers than this.
I’ve already determined that the “internal/external pointing device” conflict is not an issue, at least for my computer, since it is not a laptop.
I wasn’t able to find any other info on the MS site relating to this; perhaps I was looking in the wrong place? I’ll admit I didn’t look real hard–like I said, it’s not really a problem so much as a puzzlement.
I’m not sure I understand why the power plug not being properly grounded would cause the pointer to move by itself. I could see it causing other problems, but pointer movement?
I doubt that’s the problem anyway, since this didn’t happen with the old mouse; I imagine it’s some sort of goofy software bug (not that MS software is ever buggy :rolleyes: ).
I’m not sure I understand it either. [maybe someone else can explain it?] But I had the problem years ago and the outlets in my apartment did not accomodate the grounding pin. So I used one of those 3 to 2 converters. Unless I connected the ground wire on the converter to the screw on the outlet faceplate, I had mouse drift. The drift completely disappeared with the ground wire connected.
My other experience with cursor wandering is that I have several ibm thinkpads of various vintages. My thinkpad 770Z has severe cursor drift , the others dont. In this case it seems orthogonal to the grounding issue. I vaguely recall reading something about an interaction with hard disk activity.