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Does your mouse work erratically, skip and jump across the
screen, or freeze up? Most problems with the mouse are caused by
dirt or miscalibration.
Clean Your Mouse
Most mouses (mice?) work by use of a rubber ball that moves
three rollers. It is very common for the rubber ball to pick up
dirt and feed it into the internal mechanism of the mouse. Tame
your mouse by giving it a good cleaning.
To clean a mouse, turn it over and remove the cover that retains
the rubber ball. The cover is usually circular with groves that
let you turn the cover in a counter clockwise direction for
removal. Remove the rubber ball from the housing, wipe it clean,
and blow air into the mouse housing. Inspect the rollers to make
sure they are free of dirt. Then reassemble the mouse.
Jerky mouse movement can also be caused by the mouse pad. Most
plastic laminate covered mouse pads do not provide enough
friction for the mouse to track reliably. Cloth covered mouse
pads perform much better, although they don't last as long.
Calibrate Your Mouse
If your mouse still does not behave, check it's calibration.
Select Start | Settings | Control Panel, and open the Mouse
utility. In the Mouse Properties dialog box, select the Buttons
tab and move the Double-click speed slider control to set the
time between clicks that you want to be recognized as a double
click.
Then select the Motion tab and adjust the Pointer Speed slider
control to your preference. In the Acceleration section, set the
None radio button, then click on the OK button.
Check The Mouse Driver
On startup, Windows loads a virtual PS2 mouse driver that is
contained (along with other virtual device drivers) in the file
C:Windowssystemvmm32.vxd. If another mouse driver is located in
the folder c:windowssystemvmm32, Windows will load that one to
replace the mouse driver in vmm32.vxd.
A second mouse driver, or other device driver may be interfering
with the PS2 mouse driver. Use the Device Manager to
troubleshoot errors. To access Device Manager select Start |
Settings | Control Panel, then open the System utility. Select
the Device Manager tab. In the list of devices, double-click on
Mouse. If there is an exclamation mark (!) or a red “X” on the
mouse icon, this means the mouse has a problem. A PS2 mouse uses
IRQ 12. Make sure no other device is configured to use IRQ 12,
causing a conflict.
A DOS mode mouse driver may be interfering with the Windows
mouse driver. If the file autoexec.bat exists in the root
directory of the C drive, open the file in Windows Notepad and
look for entries like Device=mouse.sys. If the file config.sys
exists in the root directory of the C drive, open the file in
Windows Notepad and look for entries like c:dosmouse.com. To
disable the statement type the letters REM (for remark) in front
of the line.
If the file System.ini exists in the folder c:windows folder,
open the file in Windows Notepad and look in the [boot] section
for the entry Mouse.drv= If the file win.ini exists in the
folder c:windows folder, open the file in Windows Notepad and
look for entries like load= and run=. If a line refers to a
mouse driver, disable the statement by typing a semicolon (;) in
front of the line.
If you operating system is Windows 98/Me/2000, then you can use
the System Configuration utility and the System Information
utility to study the startup configuration of your computer. To
open the System Configuration Utility, select Start | Run, and
type c:windowssystemmsconfig. To open the System Information
Utility select Start | Programs | Accessories | System Tools and
click on System Information.
Check The Display Driver
Sometimes a mouse will work erratically because the display
driver is not working properly. The first thing you can do is
disable the graphics drivers hardware acceleration. Select Start
| Settings | Control Panel, and open the Display utility. In the
Display Properties dialog box, select the Settings tab and click
on the Advanced... button.
In the dialog box which appears, select the Performance tab and
move the hardware acceleration slider control to None. If this
doesn't solve the problem you might try updating the display
driver. After locating a proper driver, this is done in the same
dialog box on the Adapter tab by clicking the Change button to
open the Update Device Driver Wizard.
Try a New Mouse
Most problems with the mouse are caused by dirt or
miscalibration. If cleaning the mouse doesn't solve the problem,
the procedures described above may guide you to the source of
the problem. However, a computer mouse is a cheaply manufactured
mechanical device. As such they don't last long. If nothing else
works, maybe its time to retire that old mouse.
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