Another mouse click won't respond problem - bad motherboard?

I frequently lose the ability to click on certain elements of the GUI (task bar, or icons, or links in browser) until I press ctrl alt del once, which will always bring back my ability to click temporarily. The problem is worse with firefox than chrome. With chrome there's usually no problem with links, but clicking tabs closes them, and I can't click the preferences button. It seems like my mouse clicks by itself sometimes, using a middle or right click.

I have reinstalled windows, replaced the mouse (USB and PS2) and video card/drivers, tested the RAM, and reset the CMOS. The problem shows up in safe mode, too. My computer worked fine for a year, and this problem started up for no apparent reason and got worse and worse the last couple weeks.

Could it be that my motherboard is going bad?

 

I have the same problem with my computer. Not sure what causes it, but the mouse clicks seems to work more often under safe mode. I also notice that I can bring the mouse clicks back to life if I press <Alt>+<tab> and wait for a couple of seconds. I'm also experiencing more problems on firefox... and I found that the mouse clicks would not work at all on Netbeans. I think this problem started after I installed Netbeans. My computer has been working fine for about a year and a half until I installed Netbeans on it. Now I have reinstalled Windows XP SP3, and the problem remains even without Netbeans. I have also tried using an USB mouse, updated all the drivers and the BIOS.

I have also tested my computer by running different Linux Live CDs (including Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE and Mandriva). And notice that the clicking problem was even worse on Linux. This makes me think that it could be a motherboard or a BIOS problem.

 

If you're lucky, you will find that the solution is as stupidly simple as mine was. When I tested a new mouse, I failed to actually reboot the computer with the new mouse. When I plugged in a new USB mouse, the problem persisted UNTIL I rebooted.

In other words, the problem was just my mouse!

 

Hummm... I did reboot my computer a few times... but my mice were old. Perhaps I'll try one that I know is working.