The end of my rope...

[bloodfyr]

This is seriously beginning to piss me off. At the moment, I'm running WinXP Pro, on a 1.01 gHz AMD Athlon, with 384 megs of RAM. But the problem started back before, when I was still using WinME. *shudders*

Basically, this is what happens. I lose all control of my mouse for a period. Sometimes it lasts just a second, sometimes it goes for a few. (No more than thirty or so...). The mouse just basically freezes in place. Eventually, I'll get control of it back, and it'll do all the things that I did (move it, click on something) while waiting for it to unlock.

But that's not the only thing it does. Occaisonally, as I'm rolling the mouse across the screen, it'll open up the shortcut (right-click) menu. I click to get rid of it, but it won't go away. I have to click on the menu, then click off to get it to go away.

The mouse'll jump across the screen. I could be up at IE's back button, and it'll suddenly jump down to the System Tray. I'll be clicking on something, and suddenly it'll change...to *shrug* the scroll cursor, for example.

But, by far, my "favorite thing" that it does, is it stops moving, or it'll start jumping ALL over the screen and right click...rapidly. Sometimes, it'll pull a combo, and right/left click. When it happens, I find myself being logged out of my ISP...conversations with friends closed...work lost. Like I said. It's pissing me off.

I'm A+ certified, and have searched all of my textbooks, and asked many of my more knowledgeable friends. I've upgraded to XP, and that stopped it for a while. Then, I added another 256mb of RAM, and it went away for a while, but returned.

I don't think it's the mouse, because I've swapped in another mouse, and it still did it.

Does anybody have any suggestions short of taking a chainsaw to this thing?

 

[Comptech]

Did you upgrade to XP or do a clean install? Being A+ certified tells me you were trained to save all data and not lose a thing when doing system maitainence. Makes me believe you did a upgrade. If so you brought the windows ME problems along with you. If so, back up all your important stuff, reformat to NTFS, do a clean install,reinstall the programs you need, then import your data to those programs. Not bashing you being certified, just sounds like you are by the book, and remember we are working with windows and there are new chapters everyday!

 

[joshuajme]

Try a diff graphics card in the system, with new drivers. Or just make sure you have the latest drivers on your current card. Could be graphical if its not xp and its not the mouse, id say try a format and start again but i got told off for doing that so i'll let sum1 else do it

 

[bloodfyr]

Yeah....there was that lingering fear in the back of my head that I would have to format/clean install. (You always get that nagging feeling that you forgot something...)

Well...I was hoping it wouldn't come to that but it looks like I've no choice...Thanks. *nod* Wish me luck...

 

[Comptech]

It will be a piece of cake and you will be glad you did it. An hour or so for backing up data, another hour for new install, get your important stuff installed, then sit back and put the others on at your leisure. The bonus is your system will run much better.

 

[jumpy]

Originally posted by joshuajme
Try a diff graphics card in the system, with new drivers. Or just make sure you have the latest drivers on your current card. Could be graphical if its not xp and its not the mouse, id say try a format and start again but i got told off for doing that so i'll let sum1 else do it

I doubt it could be graphical, because things are actually getting clicked/closed etc. It would be a funny thing if the graphics card could be that flawed that it displays windows closing when they are not

Is the mouse plugged into a ps/2 port or a USB port? Tried both types of connection? Could be a problem with one of the ports on your motherboard, something which a format won't fix...

 

[bloodfyr]

PS/2. I don't have a USB mouse to try it with, though I can possibly get one from my neighbor to try.

Thanks...never thought of that.

 

[Taurus]

sounds like a pretty clever virus to me.

if you haven't already, do a scan just in case.

 

[jumpy]

Or a trojan has been installed on your machine and someone is just playing around with you....

 

[Heeter]

It was a virus that did that to my mouse and keyboard. (both hooked up to same infrared and to PS/2). Spybot only picked up the trojan during a scan, and after deleting it, got my mouse back. Did an AVG virusscan after, just to make sure.

Heeter

 

[Teddy]

...don't you mean 'end of my tether'?

Sorry, couldnt help myself!

 

[jonifen]

rope could be used too


as I read the original post, my first thought was "trojan", so unless you've scanned already, I recommend doing so now - if you dont use a firewall, try installing zonealarm (you can delete it after testing) but it will ask you if you want things to connect to the internet and if you want them to act as a server if need be - so if after the virus scan you're still not sure, you could try that.

But, if like mentioned before that you had upgraded WinME, then you will have brought the problem with you and a clean install will be the only thing to fix it - and I agree with everyone else who said the PC will run better afterwards - it always does

best of luck

 

[Maveric169]

I would say either a virus/trojan or a fried ps/2 port. Had 1 mobo that was like that, the ps/2 port was screwed up and caused all kinds of strange things to happen, mouse all erratic, keyboard that woulld type by it's self (at first I thought my pc was possesed by an illiterate demon). Then I switched to a USB setup (mouse/keyboard usb) problem gone.