Bad Mouse?

Is it possible for a optical mouse to wear out. The reason I ask is because my mouse has been doing weird stuff such as jumping around and freezing up. I made sure the driver was up to date and all that and was going to try another driver but I figured I'd post something first before I do that to see what other options I may have.

 

Hi Viking,

Try removeing the mouse in System manager. On reboot Windows will reload the driver and may get it right. The mouse does not actually wear out, but can develop electronic problems.

Good Luck, Jim

 

A couple possibilities come to mind, one is the potential failure of some mouse electronics, but from the sound of it, it could be your mousing surface. Has that changed? Often, optical mice, particularly older models, will have difficulty navigating a shiny or reflective surface. Try taking a plain piece of white paper, and mousing on it. If the problem goes away, you can safely conclude it's your mousing surface.

 

Ok I'll give that a shot and see what happens. I'm now using an old generic PS/2 mouse (the ole roller ball type) and so far no issues yet (whoo hoo) !! So I'm thinking it may be the optical mouse itself that has the problem. I even used an adapter to change the USB optical mouse to a PS/2 plug and I still had problems. So I will run like this for a few days to see if I have any problems and if I do, I'll do the above suggestion. Thanks!

 

Another thought...

I just assumed you already did this, but check the little depression on the bottom of the mouse where the optical transceiver shines and make sure there's no accumulation of crud in there (clean with q-tip dipped in rubbing alcohol).

 

Hi Again Viking,

Andy brought up some good points. I did have the same issues with a USB Optic mouses on two almost identical comps. I used USB to PS2 adaptors and the same mouses worked perfectly. Never did find a reason but, the same two machines are now running the same USB Optic Mouses with no problems.

Luck, Jim

 

Since using the old roller ball mouse I have not had any issues. I plan on purchasing a new mouse anyway and I'm leaning to a wireless one. Yeah that was a good point about the surface change as suggested by Andy and yes I cleaned things as he anticipated. Thats why I like it here at Major Geeks everybody covers things that helps a person out. If I have anymore issues I'll post.