Cursor Goes Mad

[Guest]

Hello. Often when I reboot after installing Windows updates or other
applications, the cursor rapidly jumps around and the mouse buttons fire
randomly. It does this as soon as the cursor appears during the boot process,
and keeps on doing it throughout the Windows session.

The only way I have found to stop it is to reboot three or four times. It's
extremely difficult and frustrating to do that, because any action by me is
almost immediately overridden by the random cursor movement and mouse clicks.

The system (XP Pro SP2 on a 1.5 GHz Centrino with 1GB of RAM), has been
scanned with the latest Norton AntiVirus, Ad-Aware, etc., and comes up clean.
The disk is regularly defragged and kept tidy. This only ever happens on a
reboot following an installation.

Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[Homer S.]

Hello. Often when I reboot after installing Windows updates or other
applications, the cursor rapidly jumps around and the mouse buttons fire
randomly. It does this as soon as the cursor appears during the boot process,
and keeps on doing it throughout the Windows session.

The only way I have found to stop it is to reboot three or four times. It's
extremely difficult and frustrating to do that, because any action by me is
almost immediately overridden by the random cursor movement and mouse clicks.

The system (XP Pro SP2 on a 1.5 GHz Centrino with 1GB of RAM), has been
scanned with the latest Norton AntiVirus, Ad-Aware, etc., and comes up clean.
The disk is regularly defragged and kept tidy. This only ever happens on a
reboot following an installation.

Any ideas? Thanks!

Have you tried a different mouse? If you currently use a P/S-2 type
mouse (little round green connector), try changing to a USB mouse and
vice-versa.

Good Luck
HJS

 

[Guest]

Have you tried a different mouse? If you currently use a P/S-2 type
mouse (little round green connector), try changing to a USB mouse and
vice-versa.

It's worth a try, if only to eliminate the possibility. I have tried
disconnecting the mouse while the cursor is going mad, and it makes no
difference, so that suggests to me that it's not the mouse causing the
problem.

Thanks, W

 

[jonboy]

Look for a stuck key on the keyboard.

 

[Guest]

Look for a stuck key on the keyboard.

There's a key that makes the cursor jump short distances in random
directions, interspersed with random left and right button clicks?

This would be a key that gets pressed only when I do a software update or
install, and magically gets unstuck by repeated reboots?

Sorry, I shouldn't be sarcastic [smack, smack].

Would you give me some idea of how that might be relevant? If it makes sense
I could try a different kbd.

Thanks

 

[johnboy]

The reason I suggested the stuck key is because I had a similar problem. Sometimes the cursor would jump all over, sometimes it was OK. When
I could get control of the cursor it would open anything it passed over. The start menu would jump up and down. I was crazy. Then I
noticed the Enter Key (near the numeric keypad) looked like it was partially depressed. Prying the key up solved the problem. I really
wasn't trying to be a wise guy.

 

[Guest]

The reason I suggested the stuck key is because I had a similar problem.
Sometimes the cursor would jump all over, sometimes it was OK. When
I could get control of the cursor it would open anything it passed over.
The start menu would jump up and down. I was crazy. Then I noticed
the Enter Key (near the numeric keypad) looked like it was partially
depressed. Prying the key up solved the problem. I really wasn't trying
to be a wise guy.

Yeah, that does sound similar. The differences are that this only happens
for me when I reboot after installing updates or a new application, and it
includes right mouse-clicks, so the behaviour can't be replicated by holding
down the enter key (or any other key, AFAICT).

Thanks very much for doing your best to help.

PS: my C: drive got totally corrupted so I'm rebuilding it now. I doubt that
the problem will return.

 

[Melissa B.]

On Fri, 13 Oct 2006 22:14:01 -0700, Wilba

I'd like to hear the fix for this one....

I'm wondering what happened to your C: drive and how it might be related
to your jumping mouse cursor - I'm thinking that the problem may be
hardware related and will return? Please post what happened..

HJS

 

[Guest]

I'd like to hear the fix for this one....

I'm wondering what happened to your C: drive and how it might be related
to your jumping mouse cursor - I'm thinking that the problem may be
hardware related and will return? Please post what happened..

The corruption looked like a pretty straight forward breakdown in the file
system. It stopped booting to Windows and got worse each time I tried. It
started out not being able to load .sys files, eventually couldn't load
ntoskrnl.exe, and ended up getting BSODs. When I plugged the disk into
another machine I couldn't even see the partition.

It wouldn't surprise me if the cursor thing was hardware related in some
way, but I'd be surprised if it was connected to the file system failure. Can
you think of how they may be related?

Thanks, W

 

[Homer S.]

The corruption looked like a pretty straight forward breakdown in the file
system. It stopped booting to Windows and got worse each time I tried. It
started out not being able to load .sys files, eventually couldn't load
ntoskrnl.exe, and ended up getting BSODs. When I plugged the disk into
another machine I couldn't even see the partition.

So, the hard drive is bad?

It wouldn't surprise me if the cursor thing was hardware related in some
way, but I'd be surprised if it was connected to the file system failure. Can
you think of how they may be related?

Thanks, W

I can think of one possible cause - a failing power supply. Whenever I
get a system in with multiple, seemingly unrelated intermittent
problems, I immediately plug in a different power supply. It's very easy
to do without really pulling everything apart and more often than not,
it turns out to be the cause of the problems.

HJS