Wandering Mouse problem

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A-two
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Wandering Mouse problem

Post by A-two »

Little tech problem here....hope someone can point my mouse in the right direction (pun intended).

My mouse has suddenly developed a severe case of "wanderitis". I googled it, but the only suggested solution I found, which was to unclick the precision pointing in the settings, hasn't worked. I also tried clicking the "hide mouse when typing starts" on and off, also makes no difference. Help!

This is on a Dell Latitude with Logitech wireless laser. It's been running fine for several months up till now.

As soon as I stop clicking with the mouse and start typing, mouse wanders off to top of screen - it's obviously resetting itself in some way. This is driving me nuts!

What's causing it?

Thanks.
e-richard
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Post by e-richard »

Oh yuck, I remember having just this problem with a Dell Latitude about 3 years ago. It was incredibly annoying, so my sympathies.

As I recollect, I handed to our IT guys who were baffled, and they tried switching off the touchpad, they tried downloading the latest mouse drivers from Dell website, but if my very dim memory serves me right, we ended up calling the Dell engineer in.

I cannot remember what actually cured it but as a final resort, I did consider dropping it down a flight of concrete stairs (after checking I had a good backup and full insurance !)
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Mountain Goat
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Post by Mountain Goat »

Same here, on a Dell Latitude as well - I think we cured it by cleaning out the mouse - there was a lot of fluff inside and around its roller ball.

MG
A-two
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Post by A-two »

Thanks eRichard, MG, that's helpful as it tells me it's Dell Latitude related problem. Drivers are up to date, no apparent compatibility problems. There's no roller ball to clean, it's a laser mouse. I blasted around the laser with a can of air, no change. I'm going to replace the mouse with one from another PC, but will be sad if it goes to mouse heaven, it's the best I ever had.... :cry: Can you remember if the mouse you had were Logitech? Wireless?
Last edited by A-two on Thu Jan 31, 2008 10:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Mountain Goat
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Post by Mountain Goat »

Have you tried asking Dell? Scary stuff, shouting to Madras, but hit on the right tech support guy and you may be sorted.

MG
A-two
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Post by A-two »

Good idea....I'll see in 3 weeks, when I get off the phone.
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Post by e-richard »

Pretty sure its Dell and not a mouse problem. When I had the problem, I had docking stations at work and home, each had different mouses (I cannot call them mice !) and the problem persisted.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. Good luck.
** Richard
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Post by A-two »

Update on the wandering mouse problem. It's taken 2 weeks and endless reading in the Dell help section and various tech message boards where numerous geeks expressed complete bafflement and various suggestions that didn't work. Finally, I stumbled upon the solution and it's now behaving normally. Oh happy day!

It's a track stick problem, not any of the following suggestions I came across on my travels - virus, dirt in the mouse, damaged mouse, damaged USB port, mousepad design, corrupted drivers, out of date drivers, or buffering problem, all of which I tried first. Various things helped, like slowing down the mouse speed, but it certainly doesn't cure the problem of the mouse wandering to the far corners of the screen and hiding every time I used the keyboard, almost impossible to control.

The problem seems to be a combination of "Enhanced Pointer Precision" which is a mouse control that needs to be disabled, and the track stick, or joystick, which is the little button in the middle of some keyboards that looks like an eraser. This is a feature of Dell Latitudes, (mine is a D800) and possibly other laptops as well. It needs to be disabled also.

Disabling the track stick is not as easy as it sounds because the PC doesn't routinely have the drivers installed, so there is no way to disable it no matter how hard you look on the hard drive. Here's what to do:

First, you need to go back to the Dell Drivers and Utilities disc that came with the PC to install the Track Stick driver, then a new set of buttons will appear in the Control Panel for the mouse, which allows you to disable it. In addition, I disabled the extra track stick buttons below the space bar. I have not disabled the touch pad, that is still operational, but I did uncheck "Enhanced Pointer Precision", which is also in the Control Panel for the Mouse.

To find the control panel for the mouse, go to Start - Control Panel - Mouse - Pointer Options (uncheck enhanced pointer precision) and Device Select (disable the Track Stick). If you don't see "Device Select", you need to install the new driver.

I appreciate that this is more information than you ever wanted to know about your mouse, but trust me, if you ever get this problem, you will be very glad to stumble upon this information here because it is not intuitively obvious what is going on or how to fix it.

Like e-Richard, I was very close to throwing it down a flight of stairs in frustration. I have no idea why the problem suddenly presented itself after working fine for 6 months, but I suspect the track stick got damaged somehow. I didn't even know I had one, and never used it anyway, so it doesn't matter. If this isn't the correct fix after all, I'll update again, but I hope this is my last post on this thread!

keywords: wandering mouse, erratic mouse behavior, Dell Latitude mouse problem, optical mouse control, track stick driver, throwing computer down stairs in frustration
e-richard
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Post by e-richard »

Thanks for taking the time to update us A2. What a relief you must feel.

I'm now using an Inspiron which has no track stick, but my wife has a 2 year old Latitude, so I'll definitely keep your posting - just in case :roll:
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AndyLucia
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Post by AndyLucia »

Eek, too late to help, sorry! :oops:

One of my hobbies is flightsimming, so obviously I use a joystick. On occasion I also get 'wandering mouse syndrome', which caused by the virtual mouse software of said joystick - now if I'd got here two weeks earlier I might have saved A2 a lot of hassle!!!
AndyLucia
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A-two
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Post by A-two »

Now you tell me!! :roll: :) Anyway, don't feel bad, I'm really quite enjoying the self satisfied smugness of conquering it all on my own.... :D
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