Searching the net I’ve found many complaints about the mouse pointer momentarily sticking and then jumping to the new point or the left button failing to work right. These complaints go back for years and all kinds of solutions have been proposed – solutions that work for the proposer but not others.
Replace your mouse
Update your mouse driver
Use only one battery not two in your wireless mouse.
Plug your USB mouse into a different controller
Don’t pick an Aero theme for your desktop
Disable the PS/2 compatible mouse in your device driver (assuming that’s not the one your using)
I have an HP wired mouse on a machine running Windows 7 32 bit and I have this problem. It is intermittent as it is for all people who have it, but none of those things are a cure for me. This is the second time it has developed for this machine. It was cured (obviously temporarily) last summer when the OS was reinstalled when I converted from 64 back to 32 bit.
Given the number of people who seem to have this problem, I’d think there would be an official Microsoft answer to it, but I certainly can’t find one. Does anyone know if Microsoft has addressed this?
Laser mouse or ball-type? I’ve gotten the stick-for-a-second response for ball mice that had cat hair wrapped around the spindles, or from accumulations of hand grease & skin on the rollers.
A couple of the main reasons I only use laser meese now.
Yes, of course, I’ve tried all these things listed and more.
It’s a laser mouse. And I’m well aware of the problems of mechanical mice sticking for mechanical reasons.
What I’m really asking here is does anyone know of an official Microsoft response.
Of course, if you’ve got a real solution I’m willing to try it, but I’ve looked all over and I think I’ve tried all the solutions given on the internet.
This is vague, but I’d suspect another process is taking cycles away from the mouse interrupt.
Try opening Task Manager, setting it to sort by CPU Use, and watch the percentages while you mouse around. You may be lucky enough to spot a process that keeps hogging CPU cycles at the same time stickage happens.
I doubt this is Microsofts problem, as already stated something else (not MS software related) may be taking CPU time away which is causing the jumps you see.
I/O interactions are very low level, so it’ll probably be hard to spot what it is
Can you post more details about your computer?
Specs
Os
Last time it was reinstalled from scratch
Other problematic symptoms seen
What you use your computer for generally
What makes you think it’s Microsoft’s problem to respond to? None of the computers I’ve owned have exhibited this problem. (Well, with the exception of a wireless mouse with low batteries, but the cause there was obvious.)
I agree that the most likely explanation is you have a low-level IO process stealing time from the mouse interrupt. This can happen if, for example, your HD is in “PIO” mode, as your CPU stalls until the current disk operation finishes entirely (this won’t happen unless your computer is very broken; it’s a failback mode for when DMA fails.) So that’s something you can check.
EDIT: I should add that if your HD has fallen-back to PIO mode, that’s a hardware problem not an operating system problem. If you switched to Linux or any other operating system, the symptoms might be slightly different, but you’d still have the same problem.
Yes, even on an optical mouse a bit of hair (and it might be very small) stuck in near where the light is could well cause problems. I would try cleaning around it. I am not sure that taking the shell off would really be necessary.
OldGuy, do you have a cat, dog, or other hairy animal? (Of course human hair will do it too, and possibly other types of dirt).
I very much doubt it. It is much more likely to be a hardware thing.
To all of you who’ve suggested I replace or clean my mouse, thank you, but please note that the first suggestion in my list of things I’ve tried is “replace your mouse.” The new mouse as well as other old mouses I’ve tried act the same way. The physical USB port I use doesn’t matter either. I don’t think it’s a mouse hardware problem.
Let me ask a more basic question. When I move the mouse, the on screen cursor seems to stick in one point and then free itself and jump across the screen. To me this seems to indicate the mouse’s signal of where to move is being generated, but the computer is failing to act on it or at least to update the screen. I would think that a physical problem with the mouse would cause the signal not to be sent at all or a wrong signal to be sent. I don’t see why it would behave just as if the signal were getting there slowly.
Having said this, my original mouse has been behaving perfectly today. Shhh don’t wake up the gremlins.
I believe it uses a different driver and interrupt from USB meeses… and I may have misread your original post; I thought you said you had a PS2 port.
The delay and then snap action sounds 100% like an interrupt-level problem. Unless the suggestion that a yet-lower (higher priority) interrupt is flooding somehow is correct, damn if I can figure it out.
You can get USB to PS/2 adapters. A local computer store or geek might have one laying around; they came with all USB mice for several years.
I hope it’s not too late, but hairs can get stuck in the infrared light thingy. If you are experiencing mouse jumps, get in there with some tweezers and look for small hairs. The most commonly affected by this syndrome are usually pet owners with animals that shed heavily, like longhair dogs or cats.
What sort of surface are you using the mouse on? Although mouse pads are usually not necessary, some types of surface, especially very even and reflective ones, such as glass (but any surface without a visible pattern or grain, really), are not suitable for an optical mouse, which relies on detecting texture differences in the surface as it moves over it. Surfaces with hair or similar fibers on them (either as part of the surface itself, or as “dirt”) are also likely to cause problems.