Computer suddenly hates mice

[Eric]

It was working, now it's not. The computer is running Windows XP Home. One
morning for no apparent reason the mouse stopped working. It was a USB
optical MS mouse. I tried a USB optical IBM mouse and it also did nothing.
I plugged in a regular PS2 mouse and it worked ok. We checked the hard
drive, reformatted it, reloaded Windows, and it still doesn't work. We
tried replacing the motherboard, swapping in different RAM chips, still no
luck. Now even the PS2 mouse is acting funny. It moves the cursor around
fine on the desktop but it stutters if you drag it over an icon.

 

[JS]

Click the control panel mouse icon, for the mouse pointer options disable
the Snap To option. This should eliminate the stutter you refer to.

JS

 

[Guest]

You already checked everything.

Is it an Optical USB Mouse? If yes, then try using a Good Mouse Pad. Also
check the USB Mouse option under BIOS.

Hope this information helps, let us know!

 

[Eric]

I haven't had a chance to check the BIOS yet but that wouldn't seem to make
sense, since there was a USB mouse working on the PC which suddenly stopped
working for no apparent reason. I'm fairly certain the user did not change
a setting in the BIOS.

The PC also has 2-1GB RAM chips which also stopped working together when the
user tried to figure out the mouse problem. We checked the hard disk and
even reformatted it and reloaded Windows. The PC still would not boot with
both RAM chips, but would boot fine with either one, so we replaced the MB
and fixed that problem. We've also gone in to the BIOS and selected Restore
Defaults. If the BIOS is the problem, that would mean the default is off
for a USB option and the bad MB also disables the USB.

Yes, both USB mice we tried are optical. Mouse Pad has nothing to do with
it. Optical mice shouldn't even need a pad. If we plug one in, Windows
does not pop up a New Hardware window and the optical light does not come
on.

 

[Eric]

We found the solution. Apparently the USB problem was the same as the RAM
problem, a bad MB. We set a jumper on the new MB and USB mice work now.