Computer Woes

[arco]

Can anyone help please?

My curser has started to mometarily 'stick' on the
screen as I move the mouse. Perhaps 2 to 3 seconds
some times...very annoying.

arco

[peat]

Clean the mouse - if its the type with the ball. you clean the rollers the ball moves against - there are several of them

try replacing the mouse see if the problem goes away - it could be the circuitry in it.

[slam]

arco
what have you tried so far?
is it an optical mouse?
is this an ongoing prob as in days or just today?

[arco]

Thanks for your prompt assistance guys.

The problem started a few days ago and is intermittant.
Sometimes worse than others.


Its a wired in optical mouse.

I defrag every morning.
I run a registry clean twice daily.
I run a M/S spyware check daily.
I've just run a McAfree Quickclean and
an Ad-Aware check.

The only thing that I have changed in the last 7/10 days was
to update the Zone Alarm.

[Xerof]

Could also be disk space beginning to run out and/or your files are spread eveywhere.

If you have windowsXP, run via accessories/system tools/ these two: disk cleanup and disk defragmenter. Older versions of windows will have something similar.

Otherwise, its definitely those spiders:)

Xerof

[Xerof]

Nope, see that you're doing that already

[peat]

replace the mouse with a cheapo one and see if the problem goes away would be what i'd try. mouse problems present themselves in some odd ways.

wow sounds like your pc is better maintained than the servers I work on - defrag every day is too much imo. only defrag when required.

[slam]

I'm with peat, change to another mouse if you have one,
If it's a USB mouse, try another USB port (windows will reload the driver for the new port)
are you on XP?
Make sure you use a mouse pad. An optical mouse will operate poorly on shiny serfices.
(Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, but the guys I deal with for my day job need it sometimes)

[lakedaemonian]

Not much I can add to the conversation, EXCEPT:


quote:Use a pair of tweezers to pull out debris and build-up in the optical mouse's eyehole. Just a strand of hair can cause problems with a mouse's LED sensor.

I would suggest keeping an extra keyboard and/or mouse handy.

It's a small price to pay for added insurance if a timely trade comes along.

My next project is mirrored hard-drives, as things with moving bits all eventually give up the ghost.

Good call on:

Microsoft Spyware
Ad-Aware
Zone-Alarm

I also recommend AVG antivirus.....as it is also quite capable and FREE

[peat]

quote:Originally posted by lakedaemonian



My next project is mirrored hard-drives, as things with moving bits all eventually give up the ghost.



yeh i am all too well aware of this as I trade - I always put in emergency stop losses (even if they are well out of the present context) as a cover.... and keep the phone number of my broker printed out next to the computer.
That is sufficient for my purposes. The whole serious computer redundancy thing is just too expensive in my opinion. And it still fails

[arco]

Guys - many thanks again.

I am running Win XP.

I have a mirror hard-drive on the PC that I back up weekly,
and I keep my Laptop updated as a spare for any major PC problems.

I have now swapped the mouse for an old M/S Intellimouse Explorer but that has not cured the problem.

Re Mouse Debris - I had already given it a good suck. with the vac.
No spiders found [:0]

Slam...re the defrag.

I have Diskeeper Lite and mostly when I fire up in the morning it comes on suggesting I de-frag?

(After de-frag there still remains some red blocks indication fragmented files).

[slam]

arco
bring up your task manager (ctrl, alt, del)and go to the performance tag. Stick this in the corner of one of your screens. When the mouse locks, just have a quick look and see if your cpu usage is high or spikes.
may point to a win driver problem.

[peat]

probably the diskkeeper lite is reporting page file fragmentation which it cannot cure
XP has its built in defragger (which MS bought off the people who made Diskkeeper)

[Walt]

Not sure why you are looking at defrag as a problem. Will only be an issue with file I/O or using software whcih leans heavily on the page file.

Otherwise, if it's not a physical problem with the mouse, then driver is your best bet.

Uninstall and reinstall mouse drivers ...

As a matter of interest, how often do you guys do a full reformat/reinstall of OS?

[slam]

quote:Originally posted by Walt


As a matter of interest, how often do you guys do a full reformat/reinstall of OS?

every 6 months

[Walt]

Probably about right - although Spybot, Adaware et al are pretty good (for freeware), nothing beats a reformat for clearing the gunk out.

Recently came across the VX2 nasty - tried most routes to get rid of it, but in the end a old-fashioned reformat was the best route.

Recommend you keep all your data on a second partition/drive which makes the process painless. Even more so if you can Ghost a clean install ...

[slam]

Do both Walt
reinstall from ghost update all relevant software and create another ghost every 6 months.
Feels like you have a new PC everytime, even with running washer every day

[arco]

Slam - bring up your task manager (ctrl, alt, del)and go to the performance tag. Stick this in the corner of one of your screens. When the mouse locks, just have a quick look and see if your cpu usage is high or spikes. may point to a win driver problem.

OK have done that and will keep a check for CPU usage. (I think I have already spotted a nice Head & Shoulders pattern :D)

Peat - probably the diskkeeper lite is reporting page file fragmentation which it cannot cure XP has its built in defragger (which MS bought off the people who made Diskkeeper).

I tried using the XP defragger via the control panel menu but it automatically takes me to Diskeeper Lite start up window??

Welcome Walt.
Thanks for that info, it may be the solution.

Re Mouse.
Perhaps time I bought a new one. Any suggestions for a good wireless optical? (or better).

Thanks again for all your help.

[peat]

I never reinstall OS just because of a time frame. I run W2K server and have been doing so on my home machine since it came out. Never rebuilt it! And I run it on old hardware (PII 266Mhz ) and it works fine. Obviously its not fast, but very workable even with GFT DealBook2 , Firefox, MS Office, and various other apps all running. Lots of RAM is useful tho.

In my experience ( and I work as a systems engineer) this is not necessary to keep systems working efficiently.

Tho, some disagreee. One of our clients put a lot of effort in rebuilding their servers periodically, but these were Citrix Terminal servers with 100 people logging on and off them every day. Personally I still think they were wasting their effort. My client never does this (W2K and Citrix) and we have 300 people online on 5 servers 24x7 no problems.

[Walt]

Time frame?

Ghosting a clean install takes about 30mins on a modern-ish machine. Not sure about a PII :D .

Or create a non-attended XP install with slipstreamed drivers, set it to go before bedtime ...

But even from scratch, on my A64 box you're looking at around 45 mins max, including reinstalling all apps ... hardly demanding if its every 3 months and a pristine machine is the result - as slam says, feels like new ...

[peat]

i didnt mean how long it took to do it.I meant i dont do it unless theres a reason. Age alone is not a reason.
Solving your problem whatever it is by reinstalling your os is overkill imo.

[Walt]

Of course - my question was an aside.

Always try conventional methods first - and if all else fails, and you're about due anyway, a tactical nuke never hurts ... :D

[peat]

and, back on topic...
hows your puter going now arco?
we must have our main man running fine!

[arco]

Hi Peat

Thanks for your interest.

Yes, I bought another mouse and
so far all seems OK......time
will tell.

And thanks again everyone for your
help with this matter.

Greatly appreciated.

arco