Cursor jumping around!

Ok..back to the drawing board!

Have you tried switching your mouse to another?

Do you know what your system specs are?

When this happens.....do a ctrl/alt/del and list for us what shows up ?

Daizy

*edit*
How comfortable are you with your registry ?

 

No, because after I got this mouse I just got rid of the old one.

System specs? not too sure what you mean there. Specifications? If so, then no I don't, how would I find out that info?

Sorry if by asking that I come off as a "tenderfoot" of sorts in the world of computers, but I've had my computer for 3 years as I mentioned in my last post, and I have had my share of problems with it, but I feel I've been lucky to where up until this problem, I've usually been able to fingure out what was wrong and fix it. So things like looking up my system's specs is something I have to admit is a little foriegn to me.

I actually have ctr/alt/del when this happens and I really didn't noticed anything I didn't recognize in there. But next time I post, I'll put up a list of what's in there. Thing is, at the moment, the cursor isn't jumping around. (thankfully). But that's also what's so annoying about this problem. It's unpredictability.

Well, pretty comfortable. I have edited things in there over my 3 years of owning my computer, but that was only when I had written documentation on exactly what to edit and where. So I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not one who can edit a registry without specific instructions on what to do before I go in there.

-Dave

 

Dave: You may be able find out what your video card is by going to Belarc Advisor and running their Computer Profile Summary. It takes a few minutes but will tell you just about everything you wanted to know (and some things you don't) about your computer.

Belarc Advisor

John.

 

Hi again!
Just curious? Please do this?
Go to Control Panel (Start | Settings | Control Panel) Click on System, Go to the Device Manager tab and see if there are any conflicts little exclamation marks by the side of your mouse?

Daizy

 

Couple more things......
If you're not comfortable with the instructions on that page about editting yuor registry......by all means...do NOT do it.

A quick way to find your system specs, is to use www.belarc.com. It's free.

You've piqued my curiosity by saying you'll "list" what's in your close program dialogue box. We may be on to something here. You should have very little listed in there. Mainly just explorer, systray and perhaps your dial up if you have it. But we can work on that in a minute.

Will await your other replies.

Daizy

 

See whether the rodent behaves itself in Safe Mode.

 

I do not recall ( or just plain missed ) what type of Mouse ( pointing device ) we are talking about here.

Serial, PS2 or USB, ?

Somtimes it is necessary to go to the Device manager and remove and and all mice.

Then shut the machine down ( power off ) and restart.

Sometimes if several attempts are made to re-install drivers without removing the device from the device manager it does no good.

I am allready late as to being where I am supposed to be so will check back later to see what I messed up.

BillyBob

 

Thanks John. I'll give that a go as soon as I'm done posting this.

Checked it Daizy. And there's no exclamation point next to the mouse info.

Well, the reason there's a "list" is because I've got quite a few programs that run on start up in my taskbar.

Not sure if this is what you mean Billybob, but when I checked the mouse properties, the device tab said: V-Series device on the COM1 port

If that's not the info you mean, then where do I go to find out if my mouse is a PS2 or USB?

Hmm..Maybe I'll try that. After all, I've tried just about everything else. But before I do anything, I'll wait until we find out for sure about the PS2 or USB thing, just in case whatever one it is makes a difference as to whether I should remove the mouse from the device manager. (No need in taking any chances, right? )

-Dave

 

Hi again poetink
Have you ran belarc yet? It'd be nice to know how much ram you're running with?
Also? Have you ever went through msconfig and cleared out all unneccessary apps from loading at start up?
(start button.....run......type in: msconfig.......go to the start up tab)
Here are two links to tell you what those items are in under your start up tab and whether they are safe to uncheck:

Msconfig entries
and
More of the same

Daizy

 

Back to basics

I just can't help thinking this problem is simpler than it seems. I went back and read http://www.windowsbbs.com/postings.php?s=&action=getip&postid=18176

There was some subtle humor in circling the screen 200 times. The real message was to clean the mouse ball.

During the last month I installed a new MS Wireless Desktop and I love it, but lately the mouse has been behaving like poetink describes.

I naturally looked at the ball to be sure it was clean and it was. But the next step is to clean the rollers that the ball turns inside the mouse.

These rollers are usually dirtier than the ball. They pick up lint and dust like the roller brush bearings on a vacuum sweeper or casters on a chair. There was very little, but it was there. And guess what? It worked.

One other thought:
Have you considered the surface that the ball rolls on? Is it slick? Dusty? Paper? Embossed?
The ball is a 1:1 analog device and it will read variations that the eye doesn't see. GIGO.

 

the device tab said: V-Series device on the COM1 port

That says it is a Serial Port Pointing device.

Pinocchio

I get your drift about cleaning the ball and rollers etc.. But My USB Mouse is an Optical Device. ( no ball )

My PS2 is a TrackBall. ( has ball and rollers and does need cleaning ) once in awhile.

But when I moved the printer from USB back to parallel and then Windows reinstalled the two pointing devices, that told me in no uncertain terms that there was a not to be seem in DM, conflict.

Also this may or may not apply. When I was using Win98 SE/IE5 I had to ( with no other choice in order to maintain pointer stability ) use the default drivers that shipped with SE. ( I only had the TrackBall then. )

SE just plain WOULD NOT allow me to use Logitech drivers.

This is why I suggested the removal of the device from the DM.

BillyBob

 

Hi everyone.

Well, I think (and hope), that the mystery has finally been solved with my problem!

I ran my system file checker again. But this time I set it to also look for files that had been deleted. Well, it found a .avi screen saver file that somehow got deleted (I really don't remember deleting it belive it or not), so I went to the website where I originally got that particular screen saver, and downloaded another copy of it, and re installed it. and so far, *knocks wood* the mouse cursor is working normally, And even though at times, when I tried different things during this, and the cursor behaved itself, it never lasted very long at all. But now, I've had my computer on for a couple of hours, and the cursor hasn't moved anywhere without me doing the moving myself.

I must admit though that it strikes me kind of strange that something like a screensaver file would have an affect like that on a mouse cursor. Does this seem unusual to anyone here?

So once again (if this is truly over), I want to thank all of you who posted replies with advice and help. I very much appreciate it.

So if you don't see me post about this again, you will all obviously know that things are still working.

-Dave

 

Very and I'm finding it difficult to think of any possible relationship between the two. Anway, fingers crossed ...

 

One thing I did neglect to add Brett, was that along with that screen saver file, I had to also download a DIV X CODEC program that is needed for that screen saver to work. So the only conclusion I can come to is that having the codec program without the screen save (or vice-versa) may have reaked some kind of havoc on the computer to the point where it affected the cursor. But still, it seems odd to me.

-Dave

 

Congratulations poetink
You still might want to consider following my advice for your msconfig as well? Your computer can only thank your for it anyhow?

Daizy

 

Well everyone. I'm back again with the same problem.

It seems that avi screensaver thing wasn't the problem after all.

Not long after I last posted, this stupid cursor started up again with it's erratic behavior.

The most recent thing I tried to do was to re install windows 98,
but even that didn't work. But here's something that happened as I was re installing windows and I don't know if this could be the problem or not.

Now before I say this, let me first explain that since my computer was custom built 3 years ago, I wasn't given a copy of Windows 98 on CD, but rather the guy who built my computer extracted all the the files from the CD to my hard drive. This was done so that I could re install windows from my computer (plus I don't think he had a CD-R when he built my computer)

But anyway, here's what happened while I was re installing windows...At one point during the installation, a prompt came up telling me it couldn't find a particular system file, when I click on the details button, the file that couldn't be found was called: THREED.VBX and is supposed to go into my windows/system folder.

But it doesn't end there, after I click the "skip file" button, the installation goes on until the end, but when my computer finally boots up for the first time, the same prompt comes up, but this time the details show that it a file called: SYSAUDIO.SYS that wasn't found. This file goes into the windows/system32/drivers folder.

So do either (or both) of those files sound as though they could be causing my problem with the mouse cursor?


Thanks,
-Dave

 

Not trying to be arrogant, but I didn't see in any of the posts previous that we had switched our 'new' mouse with one that we know works correctly on another computer.

It wouldn't be the first time that a mouse has gone intermittently insane due to a weak solder connection on the circuit board or bad sensors with the wheels.

If you have switched the mouse, my apologies, I must have missed it when reviewing the posts. However, I think eliminating the mouse is particularly releveant. Even if you have to buy a $15 or $20 mouse to be sure, surely that is worth the amount of time you have put into this issue.

Just my $.04 (adjusted for inflation)

Respectfully,

Gary

 

Well Gary, unfortunately I don't have another mouse (or another computer for that matter) to switch over to in order to test out this theory.


Don't know if this would help by mentioning this, but I'll say it anyway.

Maybe I should explain in a little more detail what happens when the mouse cursor "goes nuts "..

The cursor actually moves all by itself without me even touching the mouse, and it doesn't go all over the screen, but rather only moves erratically from left to right (or right to left) in the same path, in a fast jerky motion. or it'll just zip to one side of the screen.

but it never goes up and down or diagonally, and gets so bad at some points, that it will "attach" itself to either the left or right hand side of the screen and stay there for undetermained amounts of time before it releases itself and starts to work normally again (for an undetermained amount of time).

Thanks for the suggestions Gary.

-Dave
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