Wireless mouse has problems on my new laptop, but a wired one works fine

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

So I have a wireless mouse that worked fine on my old laptop, but when I use it on my new laptop I can’t really scroll and I can’t cut/paste well. The mouse basically jumps around too much and it won’t allow me to select and copy/paste text or grab the scroll bar to scroll up/down. Sometimes when I left click it’ll click twice.

A wired mouse works fine though on this new laptop, and again the wireless mouse works fine on my other laptop. I can use a wired mouse I just find the cord kind of cumbersome.

Any ideas why the wireless one is having these issues? I’ve heard there could be an issue with the mouse frequency, but I don’t know how I can change that. Are there certain wireless mouse you can buy where you can adjust the frequency?

#2

Check to see if you have the latest driver for it.

#3

Check to see if there is software specifically for your model of mouse and download and install it to your new PC. Be sure to check the settings once you do.

#4

Welcome to the club.

#5

Static electricity. The charge builds up and everything goes bonkers.

Static electricity will also turn touchpads into possessed demons.

~VOW

#6

This is really weird, but on all my laptops (Lenovo, HP, and Dell), my wireless dongle will only work if it’s plugged in a USB (2.0 & 3.0) on the right-hand side of the laptop. My emergency back-up corded mouse will work whichever side it’s plugged in on.

#7

Do you use Firefox?

I love Firefox, and I am highly pissed that places are not supporting it. I have the same issue with a wireless mouse and my newest laptop in Firefox. If I browse in MS Edge, or use Office off-line, the wireless mouse works fine.

A lot of web pages won’t work in Firefox, either. I website for my mutual funds won’t work in Firefox, and two of my credit cards won’t work in Firefox. If I want to pay online, I have to use Edge. YouTube runs better in Edge. Watching videos and playing games against the computer are the main things my son does on is computer, so he uses Edge all the time.

#8

I appreciate the replies so here are my responses so far

Check to see if you have the latest driver for it.

I checked, it said I had the most up to date driver.

Check to see if there is software specifically for your model of mouse and download and install it to your new PC. Be sure to check the settings once you do.

When I plugged it in it does what wireless mouse normally do, it seemed to install the software from the dongle. I checked the drivers, and they are up to date.

Static electricity. The charge builds up and everything goes bonkers.

I don’t know a lot about electronics, but wouldn’t the power cord which has a grounding plug take care of that? The wireless mouse works fine on my other laptops.

This is really weird, but on all my laptops (Lenovo, HP, and Dell), my wireless dongle will only work if it’s plugged in a USB (2.0 & 3.0) on the right-hand side of the laptop. My emergency back-up corded mouse will work whichever side it’s plugged in on.

my laptop has 2 ports, its equally bad on both sadly.

Do you use Firefox?

I’ve tried chrome, firefox and opera. The mouse issues seem to be a little worse on chrome vs the other two, but it is still having trouble on the other 2 browsers.

Soooooooooooooooooooooo…for shits and giggles (I should’ve done this earlier and I only did it now while writing this post) I just took the wireless mouse out of my work laptop and hooked it up to my personal laptop. It seems to be working quite a bit better. Maybe I just have an old, out of date wireless mouse.

FWIW, the mouse I was using when I wrote this original thread post is one of those wireless mouse/keyboard combos, my work mouse is just a mouse by itself. I’m wondering if that has something to do with it.

Hopefully this fixes it.

#9

Re your post above, OP, you’re using a USB dongle mouse. Have you considered a bluetooth mouse?

#10

I’m an IT guy. Wireless mice and KBs are devices from Hell. Even if they work perfectly, when you need them the most, when your life or financial future is at stake, the batteries will die and the device will fail. Eschew them as though they were demonic devices, for they are.

#11

I’m with you. I resisted at first, but eventually adopted using the touchpad. It’s taken awhile but it’s starting to work really well.

And I’m a lifelong separate trackball user, wired and wireless. Years and years, since the late 90s.

My previous companies used Dell laptops. My current company, new since just January, uses Lenovos. It took a little while to adapt to my Lenovo but now I really (really!) like it. Dells are shit. Crap.

Just my .02. And whatever works for you, even if it’s Dell, that’s cool.

#12

I cannot get the touchpad working to my satisfaction. I still cannot figure out how to right click with it.

I use a Bluetooth mouse, largely to save on the USB ports.

#13

I hate wireless mice, and I’m not one to throw around words like hate. Imagine having a bunch of students happily working on their current research when someone else’s wireless mouse suddenly starts working on their computer. I replaced them with old timey cheap ass mice.

#14

It’s probably a driver issue. That being said, I am seeing a pattern, which is that wireless devices are having more and more issues on later versions of Windows 10. Each update seems to cause some sort of problem with either a wireless device (mouse, Bluetooth) or the wireless card itself.

#15

yeah, the laptop in question is on windows 10. but the drivers are up to date

#16

Might not matter that the drivers are up to date. I’m having intermittent wi-fi drops on a brand new Dell. I’ve reinstalled drivers twice. I’ve updated drivers. Doesn’t matter. And through my hours of sleuthing I’ve read about this problem and others related to wireless devices. There seems to be an uptick in complaints over the last several versions of Windows 10.

I am not a computer expert - couldn’t tell you for sure what the deal is. But Windows 10 seems to be getting worse and worse. They are also taking away some of the previous ‘fixes’ that used to work (like adjusting the power settings, for instance). Typical Windows: roll out the product and crowdsource to find out just how fucked up it is.

#17

At the risk of being hit with a fish, have you tried new batteries? My experience with wireless mouses is that they fart in the general direction of generic batteries, and work much better not just with brand name, but specifically with the ones that say “Max,” or “Durable,” albeit, they run through them like my 14-yr-old goes through pizza. They also really like lithium batteries.

Because they go through generic batteries fast, they can start misbehaving even though you “just” changed the batteries, so you are sure there isn’t a battery problem.

In fact, I went back to a corded mouse because I was sick of running out of batteries. It wasn’t so bad when they took two batteries, but the newer ones that take only one battery are awful.

Two other suggestions: one is to first make sure that your OS is up-to-date, then check for a new driver.

The second is this: did the mouse ever work? If it worked once, then roll back the driver.

Oh. I just though of something else-- long time ago, my very first optical mouse started misbehaving. After LOTS of things tried, and lots of examination, I realized there was a dog hair stuck inside up against the optic light. Removed it with tweezers. Worked fine again.

#18

Yeah I tried new batteries but that wasn’t the issue. The wireless mouse that wasn’t working with my new laptop worked perfectly fine with my old lapptop.

However the wireless mouse from my work computer works fine with my new laptop, so I just bought another of the same model off amazon.

#19

Unless you buy a refurb older laptop for your grandchild and experience ONCE AGAIN the complete hash Win10 has made of any and all touchpad drivers. I have an old ThinkPad running Win7 that I bought circa 2011 and the range and scope of personalization I can do on that touchpad is staggering. The refurb ThinkPad I just got the grandkid is from circa 2014-2016 or so and shipped with Win10 on it and it’s so borked the touchpad won’t even recognize fucking two finger scrolling, which is SUPPOSED to be bog standad for Win10. Luckily it has a little touch button on the keyboard, the arrow keys are in the smart place Lenovo always puts them and I had a spare new Logitech mini wireless mouse to plug in or the kid wouldn’t be able to scroll for shit. Fuck Microsoft, right in their softest and pinkest parts. With a razor blade dildo.

#20

Do you talk like that in front of your grandchild?