Mouse Has Stopped Working, Xp

[CW1]

Hi,
Been having problems for a while, PC running s-o-o slow, then lost most of my drives (eg. external hard drive, SD card - still haven't got them back), then as I was rebooting for the umpteenth time, noticed updates were being applied. On XP (?? Huh ?). Since then I haven't been able to use my mouse.

Ran the PC Recovery tests (F10 on reboot), nothing found. Ran malwarebytes scan, nothing found. Ran Chkdsk /F, again no problems found (though that had worked when I lost my mouse once before).

I'm hoping the mouse is just kaput & will try a friends later, but seems a coincidence. Is there anything I can try before having to try to restore pre update ? is there any point running PC Recovery, or will that just make it worse ?

Appreciate any suggestions ...

[Old_Geezer]

I guess there may have been old updates downloaded yet still uninstalled.

Always useful to have a spare mouse in case your usual one plays up. Have you brought up the device manager and checked if there is any problem seen there ?

If you have lost your external drives you seem to have bigger problems than just the mouse. Are you sure you have enough resource ? Although I'd suspect a reboot should cover that. Have you unplugged it all for a few minutes and then powered up from scratch ?

[aelmpvw]

my mouse occasionally freezes, i find that ctrl alt del followed by delete unlocks it

[aelmpvw]

sorry, ctrl alt del then click cancel

[ivor4781]

is your hard drive full up, ditch the progs you dont use on there and run "ccleaner" free

[fiction-factory]

Is it a mouse with a cord? My last 3 became temperamental after around 6 months and I had to wiggle the wire/usb for ages to get them to work on too many occasions. If so, I think you should buy a new mouse for around £5.
I've now got a cordless one and it cost only £5 and it seems very good.
It may be the mouse battery of course

[Jackdaw33]

I bought a cordless mouse just four weeks ago. Works fine, except the batteries conked out after three weeks. I'm talking Duracell here, not cheapies. Three weeks seems a very short time to me. Might have to think going back to a corded one.

[fiction-factory]

I'm not surprised the mouse batteries ran out, TTT, if that was around the time you were posting about the Brexit vote.

Yes, I'll have to see how long this battery lasts.

[fiction-factory]

Sorry Jackdaw- I thought that a TTT trump avatar- just realised it's Boris!

[Old_Geezer]

Naw Boris is far more popular over there. He's not felt constrained about being honest about anything/anyone.

3 weeks is a joke. Check you have genuine Duracell. Or get rechargables.

[CW1]

Ahem ... just to bring back to topic (now I'm on someone else's PC) ...

Disk resources are fine, mouse properties are empty though when troubleshooting it says it's working properly. It did actually work when I ran the tests in PC Recovery tho' not in safemode running dskchk /F.
does nothing other than close tasks (but have since found F4). Tried a different mouse, still no good. Oh, & it's a wired mouse.

What does PC Recovery actually do, would it worth trying or would it make it worse ? Have never used it myself ...

[Old_Geezer]

PC recovery, if it is started by F10, sounds like a CMOS/BIOS function and will depend on what the BIOS coders put in. I thought you said you had already tried it and found nothing ? I'd doubt it would find anything but I also doubt it would do harm to run.

Mouse properties are empty, eh. I'm wondering if deleting the reference to the mouse in the device manager, then rebooting, and then if it didn't find new kit added by itself during the power up, kicking off a search for new kit in the hope it would find the mouse and reinstall everything correctly. It might be worth a try.

[CW1]

Hi Old_Geezer,

I didn't actually run the PC Recovery, it said to run some tests 1st. It was those that came back clean. What you suggest about deleting the mouse might be worth a go. I have got another to try 1st but given that it did work in PC Recovery, along with the other probs, I'm not confident.

It's been suggested also that I "delete" the recent upgrade by someone who uses Windows 10. Not sure if I can do that on XP - ? Or running Malwarebytes several times. When I had the same prob once before, running that just the once did solve it, but hasn't this time with just one run of it.

[Old_Geezer]

I may be wrong but unless your experience tells you differently I'd have thought this F10 might be BIOS related, whilst the Device Manager is definitely a Windows function. Give it a try and see it Windows can reinstall the software for the mouse from scratch.

[Old_Geezer]

Like yourself I did a websearch and it seems F10 does a whole system restore. Apologises but I think that would be an overkill.

Did the Device Manager thing work ?

[CW1]

Not long got home, realised - how do I remove the mouse to try reinstall it ?? Got to try find where I can maybe regress the system pre upgrade. Winging this !!

[Old_Geezer]

If you bring up the Device Manager you merely delete the mouse part there. You don't need to actually remove the mouse physically. Although you can always follow the lead back to whatever socket it goes to. Probably a USB port these days.

[CW1]

Found Device Manager but there's no mention of Mouse. There is Keyboard so guessing it should be at the top of the tree but can't expand using mousekeys. Should I turn that off ? I'm thinking that won't make any difference ...

[CW1]

Oh, & it's not a usb mouse, not as I understand it. it's a green port at the back of the tower (next to a purple one for the keyboard).

[Old_Geezer]

Ah, ye olde PS/2 socket eh ?

I no longer have XP to check, but mice should be htere somewhere or it may be part of the problem.

Check all the sub categories by clicking on the > signs and see if you can find a reference to mice or pointing devices. http://www.technical-assistance.co.uk/images/devman.jpg

[CW1]

That's it exactly :)


Trouble is, I can't expand the "+" (rather than >) using the numeric keypad as the mouse. Should I turn mousekeys off ? If I can then get to it (using tab, down arrow), guessing would expand it ? It's not at the moment ...

If "keyboard" is at the top of a "+", would've thought "mouse" would be too (but it's not) ?

Thanks for this, but I'm fast approaching giving up tonight ... :(