Wireless mouse made my screen go blank - permanently

General Questions
#1

Bought a new wireless trackball mouse - the Logitech M570. It worked fine for about ten minutes when the screen suddenly went blank. The computer was still running, but the monitor was receiving no signal. Several re-starts with and without the new mouse, and without other USB devices plugged in, and no change. Blank screen.

So I pull out my netbook (both it and my desktop use Windows XP)… and the same thing happens! The netbook starts up and even plays the little Windows startup song, but the screen is completely blank from the moment it is powered on.

What the hell? How could a new mouse make my computers stop talking to their monitors? And what the hell do I do about it?

#2

Either something has failed in your computer screen and it is just coincidence or perhaps you accidentally activated a keyboard command to send the video signal to an external monitor.

Try plugging a spare monitor into the VGA port and see if that gets a signal.

#3

Yeah, I seriously doubt the mouse had anything to do with blanking the screen on both a desktop and a netbook. I’d suspect some sort of trojan before I suspected the mouse.

#4

If it was just the desktop, I would say that the monitor failed and it was a coincidence, but the same thing happened on his netbook (completely separate).

Also, to the OP, does the desktop monitor show any indication that it is on (e.g. a “no signal” message)? The only things I can think of are either some obscure command was somehow sent that switched video sources (as **Iggy **suggested) or there is a conflict between the mouse driver and video card (the mouse driver remains installed when the mouse is removed, even with a restart, thus the problem persists). However, the latter would only occur after the computer starts up if that was the problem (as you say it is blank from power-on).

#5

Shouldn’t that still allow the display to come on during boot though (as I mentioned above with a mouse driver conflict)? It is true that some (very) old CRT displays could be damaged by improper display modes, but any modern display would simply ignore invalid signals.

#6

That would be quite a coincidence given that the only changes to both machines was the addition of the new mouse.

But I now have the netbook working again. While plugging and unplugging the new mouse the screen suddenly came back on. The computer and mouse now seem to be functioning normally.

I tried the same with the desktop, but no joy. Windows is password protected on the desktop - not sure if that will affect the problem. But as of now the monitor is not showing any signs of connectivity. Will try to find another monitor to test.

Iggy, you mentioned a keyboard command for using another monitor. What might that command be? But I doubt that’s what happened because I was not making any keyboard inputs at the time the desktop computer went kablooey.

#7

The monitor is behaving as if no computer were connected to it. When power hits the monitor in the absence of a computer it briefly shows the LG logo, then goes into power saving mode. It’s doing the same thing now when I power on the desktop.

Edit: I’ve tried the desktop with my old mouse too - no change.

#8

Last update for tonight - I just tried the desktop monitor on the netbook and it works normally. Still no response when it is connected to the desktop.

I’m going to bed and will check the thread tomorrow for any further suggestions. Your input is greatly appreciated.