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Mouse Is Freezing - Why?


Mrs. Muddled

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Hi y'all:

 

It happened when I was on this forum replying to a post by Thomas. Ding! Ding! The mouse froze. I eventually had to re-start the computer ... and re-type my post. :(

 

Same thing happened yesterday. I believe I was on a forum again ... in the middle of posting a reply.

 

Do you have any idea what is causing this? I recognize the bell that goes off in the background ... when I'm not even touching the keys. I just can't associate it with anything.

 

Somehow I don't think it's a problem with the mouse.

 

MM

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What kind of mouse are you using...Optical mouse? Mouse with a ball? Wired/wireless? Mousepad on laptop/keyboard?

 

The bell ding ding may or may not be related to the mouse.

I had a similar problem a while back that my screen would sometimes freeze or act up (strange characters appear) sometimes ding was heard from system. Made it impossible to use mouse. Turned out that I had a staple caught in my KEYBOARD. It was sending info to the system and I was not touching anything. Cleaning the keyboard resolved it.

 

 

This comes from Technobuddy's Q&A column:

http://www.statesman.com/money/content/shared/money/stories/technobuddy/qanda/06/qa060115.html

The trouble with figuring out why a mouse freezes is that — without squinting my eyes — I can think of at least a dozen possible causes. I'll give you some of the usual suspects and hope that we'll hit on a solution. • Memory: You didn't say how much memory is installed in the computer. But if a computer doesn't have enough, it can (literally) put the mouse operation on hold while it completes other work.

 

• Static electricity: Especially in the winter months, static electricity can cause a mouse to stall, start working again and stall. If that's the case, it really isn't the rebooting that makes the mouse work again. It's just a coincidence.

 

• Usual suspects: Have you installed a new program, added a new device or made other significant changes? When a new problem crops up, you can usually find the cause in recent changes.

 

• Substitution: Try using a different mouse to see what happens. If the problem goes away, the solution is simple. If it doesn't, you've ruled out the possibility that the mouse is defective.

 

• Connections: If the mouse connects using a USB port, try a different port.

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What kind of mouse are you using...Optical mouse? Mouse with a ball? Wired/wireless? Mousepad on laptop/keyboard?

 

The bell ding ding may or may not be related to the mouse.

I had a similar problem a while back that my screen would sometimes freeze or act up (strange characters appear) sometimes ding was heard from system. Made it impossible to use mouse. Turned out that I had a staple caught in my KEYBOARD. It was sending info to the system and I was not touching anything. Cleaning the keyboard resolved it.

This comes from Technobuddy's Q&A column:

http://www.statesman.com/money/content/shared/money/stories/technobuddy/qanda/06/qa060115.html

Hi,

 

It's an optical mouse.

 

I was reading replies to my posts earlier today and once again ... not typing ... just reading ... and "ding" the darn thing froze again.

 

I read an old post of mine on this forum where I was complaining that my mouse was freezing up on me. Well, after than I was able to fix the problem. I needed to slide the "amount of disk space to use" slider in temp internet files ... up to a larger number and my problem was solved. I've just moved it up to 1526 now. It was at 700 something.

 

What number do you have yours set at?

 

I have 512 on my computer so I should have lots of memory.

 

I"m wondering why this is starting up again.

 

I did download JAlbums today.

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just happened again. Lost my last post. That's three times since I started writing this post. I'm going to log off the forum before I lose the mouse again.

 

Do you think system restore would help?

 

Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that I've been flipping back and forth with Firefox and I.E?

Edited by Mrs. Muddled
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I may be off on this one... but just my gut feeling. I think your hard disk space is filling up, and most things are running straight off your memory now, putting lots of stress on your system. I would try a few things...

1. Clear cache and history (this might take a long while, since you've set more than 1 gig for temp)

2. Defrag your hard drive

 

I have experience where the system locks up and moving the mouse or typing anything would result in the system "beeping" through the system speaker. That's normally when the computer is overloaded. Sometimes it resolves itself when the CPU clears up the backlog of tasks/calculations you have asked it to perform.

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I may be off on this one... but just my gut feeling. I think your hard disk space is filling up, and most things are running straight off your memory now, putting lots of stress on your system. I would try a few things...

1. Clear cache and history (this might take a long while, since you've set more than 1 gig for temp)

2. Defrag your hard drive

 

I have experience where the system locks up and moving the mouse or typing anything would result in the system "beeping" through the system speaker. That's normally when the computer is overloaded. Sometimes it resolves itself when the CPU clears up the backlog of tasks/calculations you have asked it to perform.

 

Ok ... here goes the test. I've been on the forum for several minutes now - reading past advice. So far I still have a mouse.

 

I have done a disk clean up and defrag. I have moved the temp file slider to 800.

 

I've compacted old files.

 

Does that number "800" sound like a good one to leave the temp file setting at?

 

I usually defrag about once a month.

 

I use a program called "CleanUp!" to flush the caches stuff. My settings in Internet Options do not appear to work. Not sure why. I mean clearing cookies and temp files. It's like the program can't find them ... that's why I've used CleanUp! for years.

 

I take a lot of photgraphs and keep many of them on the computer. I also use Picassa2 as well as MY PICTURES folder. I'm wondering if I have too many photos on the computer? I"ve actually made CD's of most of them ... but I start bringing them back onto the computer - changing folders they're in ... and ultimately making a mess of my filing system. I must have the same photos saved on several CD's. What I need is one big CD to save ALL my photos, instead of dozens of CD's. I have tray for playing DVD's but I know nothing about burning DVD's. I'm assuming (there I go again :) ) that I have to buy yet another piece of machinery to burn my own DVD's. Is that how y'all store your millions of photos?

 

I seem to have tons of space when I look at this -

 

See image attachment (TCH-Bruce)

 

 

So ... I've now been on the forum for several minutes - done lots of "stuff" and lo and behold - NO MOUSE FREEZE UP!

 

Let's assume I have solved the problem by doing the obvious.

 

Thanks heaps for taking the time to answer my question and make suggestions. I'd say they worked!

post-1508-1146612554_thumb.jpg

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Glad that your problem has been resolved. :) Though it looks like you've got plenty of disk space... so I'm not sure whether temp/cache files are the culprit. Guess we'll just have to wait and see. *touch wood*

 

For my own computer, I have cache set at 10mb for Firefox, and only 1mb for MSIE. I don't know whether it is good or bad... I just don't like cache files stacking on my system. I also visit sites that have new content every day, so I figured cache doesn't really serve too much purpose for me. Having broadband with no download limit also helps! :)

 

With regard to IE's options not clearing the temp files... I'm stumped. IE should know where it stores its temp files!

 

Photographs - I store them on a removeable hard drive... but any other partition would do. Having lots of data on the system partition tend to slow the computer down by incrasing space usage and fragmenting it... but then again, it looks like your computer has plenty of free space. I organize my photos by date of photo taken and do progressive backup, so I have overlaps too.

 

DVD burning - if your DVD drive has a "DVD-ROM" symbol, or if the "hardware" tab on the properties page of the DVD drive says it is a "DVD-ROM", the drive cannot burn DVD's. You would have to purchase a DVD-burner.

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Is that how y'all store your millions of photos?

 

There are programs you can use to sort and keep track of your photo collection using tag words, etc.

 

One such program is Photo Album by Corel (formerly by Jasc).

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel3/Products/Display&pfid=1047024307383&pid=1047025470321

You identify the photos, and burn the cd's or dvd's through that program. It keeps track of where the photos are. For example, lets say you want to look up Christmas photos of Crazy Uncle Dave. As you load them into the program you define words for the images like Christmas, Uncle Dave, 2005, or 2004, Texas, etc. Burn your cds. You can later do a search in the program for all entries with "Christmas" and "Dave" in it. It will tell you cd 2, cd9 and cd 12! Sweet concept. Does take time to load them in but is worth it if you will need to research or keep from duplicating files!

 

I have not used it, but GOOGLE also offers Picasa2 for organizing photos.

http://picasa.google.com/

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Actually that program or others like it would make a nice Mother's day gift!

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There are programs you can use to sort and keep track of your photo collection using tag words, etc.

 

One such program is Photo Album by Corel (formerly by Jasc).

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel3/Products/Display&pfid=1047024307383&pid=1047025470321

You identify the photos, and burn the cd's or dvd's through that program. It keeps track of where the photos are. For example, lets say you want to look up Christmas photos of Crazy Uncle Dave. As you load them into the program you define words for the images like Christmas, Uncle Dave, 2005, or 2004, Texas, etc. Burn your cds. You can later do a search in the program for all entries with "Christmas" and "Dave" in it. It will tell you cd 2, cd9 and cd 12! Sweet concept. Does take time to load them in but is worth it if you will need to research or keep from duplicating files!

 

I have not used it, but GOOGLE also offers Picasa2 for organizing photos.

http://picasa.google.com/

 

Thanks for the tip. Actually I use Picassa2. I like it.

I'll look into that other program. Sounds like a gooder.

 

I'm movin' fast here. My mouse just froze when I tried to send an email on Outlook Express. It's been working fine since I last commented. Out of the blue it dumped again. What a drag!

 

S

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Hello,

 

If you have XP, go into computer management and open up the error logs, have a look through there and see if anything is coming up at the time the mouse freezes

 

JimE

Image posted as attachment (TCH-Bruce)

 

This is tonight's. Does this photo tell you what is happening. Gosh, I looked at that file and it's HUGE! All sorts of red x's and warnings. Does everyone's look like that? Am I supposed to delete these files. There is almost two thousand events!

 

F-secure is my cable/firewall/virus checker.

post-1508-1146745027_thumb.jpg

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*sam grins and thinks: That suggestion was in my first post! :)

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Guest Serpentine

Does the bell still go off? If so note the time on your computer. Then go back into the logs and look at the one you posted a picture of and click the item on the left called system. Between the two, see if there is an error with the same time as when your mouse stops working. If there is, then that might be the problem. If not, replace the mouse and see if that is it. If not, it might be time to take it in and have a professional go over your computer and determine if there are other factors at play here.

 

Yes, it might be a bit costly up front but can save you many headaches down the road. It really is hard to try and troubleshoot things of this nature through a forum versus being right there at the computer.

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anyone know what the BackWeb Plugin is all about?
From answersthatwork.com, a tasklist resource that has helped me out MANY times:

 

Advertising adware where websites, ISPs, or software manufacturers include BackWeb on their site, in their ISP software, or in their software and, whenever you connect to the Internet, BackWeb also connects to retrieve advertisements which are then displayed on your screen or in your browser.

 

BackWeb is also routinely installed on new PCs by specific computer manufacturers with the aim being that BackWeb will automatically check for vital updates to the PC’s setup whenever the end-user connects to the web. Such manufacturers include Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, LogiTech, Kodak, although some or all of these may have stopped this practice at the time of writing of this entry (April 2002).

 

It is often a serious resource hog, in most cases it is also advertising adware, it slows down your Internet connection, unacceptably if you connect by modem, and it has the potential for sending out information from your PC.

 

So, knowing that, have you recently run an Adware/Spyware program to see if you are getting locked up from that source?

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Wow, that's interesting information. Nice answer site!

 

Do you think that such a "serious resource hog" might contribute to Mrs. Muddled' mouse "freezing" ?

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If the item on the computer is put in by computer manufacturer as a way to autocheck for updates, etc (Mircon used to do something similar and Dell uses its own type of program to do this) chances are very good that it is not the cause unless it has gotten corrupted in some way. That type program usually kicks in, calls home really quickly and clears out without huge drain on resources.

 

If the item is adware then certainly it can contribute to an environment that could use up available system resources causing system to slow or lockup. And yes, even with a firewall and antivirus you can get adware! Sometimes it loaded into the system with new software (free and paid) as a BONUS with the software you intend to install. It is not always disclosed during the installation process. Adware is SCUMWARE. It can slow connections (while you are trying to load page xyz, it is working in the background on that same internet connection).

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If the item on the computer is put in by computer manufacturer as a way to autocheck for updates, etc (Mircon used to do something similar and Dell uses its own type of program to do this) chances are very good that it is not the cause unless it has gotten corrupted in some way. That type program usually kicks in, calls home really quickly and clears out without huge drain on resources.

 

If the item is adware then certainly it can contribute to an environment that could use up available system resources causing system to slow or lockup. And yes, even with a firewall and antivirus you can get adware! Sometimes it loaded into the system with new software (free and paid) as a BONUS with the software you intend to install. It is not always disclosed during the installation process. Adware is SCUMWARE. It can slow connections (while you are trying to load page xyz, it is working in the background on that same internet connection).

Thank you so much for your time.

 

Here is a dialogue I've just had with Shaw Secure. They are my cable company.

 

You will notice the comment on Backweb. It is the program used to update Shaw Secure.

 

**********************

 

Not sure how to do #8.

 

The rest are done. A-ok. Negative on all others with the exception of Spybot. Yes, I did delete Spybot when advised it didn't work happily with Shaw. It took many letters to Spybot to find out how to get rid of ALL of their files. The final file that kept showing up in my scan had to be deleted manually. I don't recall what the file was called.

 

How do I know if Spybot is the problem? I also ran a search for backweb.* and came up with this.

 

 

Here is a shot of the top of the log file for your info.

 

 

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Shaw Internet Calgary Help

To:

Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 12:05 PM

Subject: RE: Please check out my shaw secure builds

 

 

Hello,

 

Thank you for your email.

 

There are some scenarios that can cause the update component of Shaw Secure to malfunction. You will need to check these in the following order:

 

1. Check the Date and Time settings are correct.

2. Make sure you have 'Admin' privileges (sometimes if you do not have enough privileges, the updates will not go through).

3. Make sure you are not behind a router, if so, please bypass it. Some routers, if not properly configured, may block the automatic updates.

4. If you have used Spybot recently, it may have removed Backweb (the program used to update Shaw Secure). If this is the case, you will need to reinstall Shaw Secure.

5. Check the following folders and make sure there are no files located in them:

C:\Program Files\Shaw Secure\Anti-Virus\dbupdate.htp

and

C:\Program Files\Shaw Secure\Anti-Virus\dbupdate

If there are any files, please delete them as they are most likely corrupt, then try to update again.

6. Check the Automatic Update Log to see what the last actions have been. It is located under 'Automatic Updates', --> 'Advanced'. In the 'Downloads' section there will be an option for 'Show Log File', the actions inside are listed from earliest to latest. This will usually let you see if there were any errors, or when the last action was taken.

7. Suspend and Resume the Automatic Updates, then try 'Check Now'.

8. Unload Shaw Secure and Allow All Network Traffic, then reload Shaw Secure and try to update again.

 

If none of the above works, Uninstall and Reinstall Shaw Secure.

 

------------------------------

 

Thank you for choosing Shaw.

 

 

Ryan

E-mail Support Team

Shaw High-Speed Internet and Cable Support

E-mail: internet.inquiries@shaw.ca | Phone: 310-7429

When sending a reply to us, please remember to include all previous correspondence.

-----Original Message-----

From:

Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2006 9:54 AM

To: Shaw Internet Help

Subject: Please check out my shaw secure builds

 

 

Am I up to date?

 

Got an alert the other day saying my updates were behind. I have it automatically set ... so I was wondering why I'd get that alert.

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Ah...So it appears that the BACKWEB you have is supposed to be a good version used by your ISP.

And your Spybot has removed or damaged it causing your system to hang on loading that program. OK, that makes sense.

 

8. Unload Shaw Secure and Allow All Network Traffic, then reload Shaw Secure and try to update again.

 

I read it like this, but since I did not write the instruction, I can't be sure of the intent:

Turn off (exit) the Shaw Secure software completely, then if you are using a firewall, set it to allow network traffic. Then turn on the Shaw Secure software again. I would go back to them to verify this step.

 

By the way, in the long run, since SPYBOT does not like BACKWEB, you might try ADAWARE SE (they have a free version) as your adware scanner. When the list pops up finding the components for back web, you can right click it in the list and and choose to ignore each of the components. Then next time you run adaware, it will leace those pieces alone, allowing you to keep your BackWeb!

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I got this note from Shaw. I'd sent them an image of almost 2,000 event entries. This is their comment:

 

Thank you for your email.

 

F-secure is your anti-virus program, and is responsible for monitoring your computer for intrusion attempts, as well as scanning your computer's files for potential hazards. As part of this activity, it generates many events throughout the course of checking files, polling servers for updates, etc. The traffic generated is normal activity for F-secure, and you should not be concerned with these items.

Edited by Mrs. Muddled
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Ah...So it appears that the BACKWEB you have is supposed to be a good version used by your ISP.

And your Spybot has removed or damaged it causing your system to hang on loading that program. OK, that makes sense.

I read it like this, but since I did not write the instruction, I can't be sure of the intent:

Turn off (exit) the Shaw Secure software completely, then if you are using a firewall, set it to allow network traffic. Then turn on the Shaw Secure software again. I would go back to them to verify this step.

 

By the way, in the long run, since SPYBOT does not like BACKWEB, you might try ADAWARE SE (they have a free version) as your adware scanner. When the list pops up finding the components for back web, you can right click it in the list and and choose to ignore each of the components. Then next time you run adaware, it will leace those pieces alone, allowing you to keep your BackWeb!

I have now followed their instructions re unloading and then re loading.

 

Okay ... everything appears to be up to date. It says it is. I'll keep an eye on it, see what happens.

 

Cheers,

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Semi-OT: Spybot should also have an 'Ignore' setting:

http://malektips.com/spybot_search_and_destroy_0017.html

If you need to ignore an entry so it will no longer appear in the threats results page, right-click on the entry and choose "Exclude this detection from further searches".
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I had the problem with the mouse and keyboard freezing (locking up) and came to the conclusion the computer was overheating. Happened whenever the room temp was high, such as summer. Pulled side panel off and just clamped a small fan about 2 feet from the computer and that did the trick.

 

Greg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Guys!

 

I took a cruise. Let the computer sit idle and contemplate its navel for a couple of weeks whilst I hoovered down every morsel of food that passed under my nose. Can you say "Piggo?" :) Anyhow - the computer has been working very well for several days now. I still have no idea what sets it off like that ... but it appears to be in good health as we speak.

 

It's a constant challenge isn't it?

 

MM

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Maybe she (the computer) needed the break as much as you did! :) LOL

 

Hope you had a fun time! Glad its working now.

 

BTW, :) Where did you go on your cruise?

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Maybe she (the computer) needed the break as much as you did! :D LOL

 

Hope you had a fun time! Glad its working now.

 

BTW, :goof: Where did you go on your cruise?

 

Took Island Princess from LA to Santa Barbara to San Francisco to Sitka to Ketchikan to Victoria to Vancouver. Fabulous trip. Great ship! Highly recommend it. It was sort of an Alaska sampler. Repositioning type cruise I guess. Our third trip to Alaska.

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Ahem...

 

:goof:

 

Last time I was in Victoria, my wife and I rode bikes past the cruise terminal there (actually that should be bike in the singular. It was a tandem bike). I have a picture here somewhere....

 

Yes. Here it is:

 

normal_PICT0307.JPG

 

And here is another taken in Victoria:

 

normal_PICT0244.JPG

 

I LOVE that area of the world!!!! :D

 

We took a Western Carribbean cruise on NCL from New Orleans (pre-Katrina) to Cozumel, Belize, and Honduras. Very fun. I actually referred one of the fellow passengers to TCH while on that cruise. I wonder if he ever joined....

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