Gemstar GuidePlus 'Disappearing Mouse Pointer' FIX that SEEMS to work....

  • Thread starter Thread starter Hammer Toe
  • Start date Start date
H

Hammer Toe

Yesterday my system became afflicted (and NOT for the first time) with
the above (and seemingly NOT infrequent and VERY annoying) problem
(for MANY people....)

NOTHING fancy about the system: ATI AIW9600 Pro; absolutely 'vanilla'
system with LATEST OS Patches (Windows XP Pro), LATEST Video Drivers
and MMC software from ATI's site AND LATEST version of GuidePlus, and
NOTHING FANCY in terms of installed software. (The PC in question is
used EXCLUSIVLEY for Multi-Media PVR/TV Recording/Playback functions
and has virtually NOTHING on it in terms of SW beyond the OS and ATI
SW.).

What was REALLY annoying when the problem developed was that the
system, Guideplus and the mouse, etc. had been working *****JUST FINE
for several weeks up to and including Friday, June 4th***** and I had
been using G+ to to schedule many recordings using the PVR
functionality of the product and was VERY happy with it.

Then SUDDENLY, yesteday morning (Sat. June 5th), the mouse pointer
started vanishing.

NOTE: NO CHANGES/NOTHING had been made to the system in the
interim!!!!

Well, I tried a LOT of things, everything sugggested on ATI's site,
different mouse drivers, different mice, different mouse settings to
disable hardware acceleration/support of the pointers, etc. and BOTTOM
LINE - NOTHING WORKED.

The mouse would ALWAYS disappear after about 4-5 seconds after being
placed over GuidePlus AND the ONLY way I could get it back (and then
EVEN THEN FOR ONLY A FEW SECONDS) was to VERY RAPIDLY 'SWIRL' the
(unseen) Mouse Pointer over G+/the screen for SEVERAL SECONDS and it
would (briefly) come back for a few seconds and then diappear again.

To make a 'long story short': I did some extensive searching on the
nett (Usenet News Group Archives) and stumbled across the following
suggested fix THAT ACTUALLY SEEMS TO WORK.

Now I can't guarantee that it will work for others BUT I can say that
as soon as I did this mod, my GuidePlus Mouse behaviour returned to
normal and ('touch wood') is still working.

Here's the text of the fix/suggestion that I found - if it helps
anyone, please post. (Again), this has been a LONG SUFFERING
IRRITATION for MANY people and ATI to date seems to have been unable
to resolve. (I think I'll Email this to them; maybe they can verify
and/or EXPLAIN WHY it does/seem to,work - don't 'ask me').

Here's the (suggested) fix I found - a registry mod (which again I
cannot take credit for or explain):

***********************************************************************************
I had the same problem and found this registry fix workaround in
another group. This worked for me.

Find this key in the registry and change the value to 3. Mine was set
to 4 and the cursor kept disappearing.

After I changed it to 3 it stopped disappearing.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ATI
Technologies\Multimedia\Features\TV\Display]
"DisplaySize"=dword:00000003

Mike...........
*****************************************************************************
Again: hope this helps somneone....
 
Thanks for the post, I have the "disappearing mouse pointer" problem from
day one.
tried the fix, it works. (so far at least)



Hammer Toe said:
Yesterday my system became afflicted (and NOT for the first time) with
the above (and seemingly NOT infrequent and VERY annoying) problem
(for MANY people....)

NOTHING fancy about the system: ATI AIW9600 Pro; absolutely 'vanilla'
system with LATEST OS Patches (Windows XP Pro), LATEST Video Drivers
and MMC software from ATI's site AND LATEST version of GuidePlus, and
NOTHING FANCY in terms of installed software. (The PC in question is
used EXCLUSIVLEY for Multi-Media PVR/TV Recording/Playback functions
and has virtually NOTHING on it in terms of SW beyond the OS and ATI
SW.).

What was REALLY annoying when the problem developed was that the
system, Guideplus and the mouse, etc. had been working *****JUST FINE
for several weeks up to and including Friday, June 4th***** and I had
been using G+ to to schedule many recordings using the PVR
functionality of the product and was VERY happy with it.

Then SUDDENLY, yesteday morning (Sat. June 5th), the mouse pointer
started vanishing.

NOTE: NO CHANGES/NOTHING had been made to the system in the
interim!!!!

Well, I tried a LOT of things, everything sugggested on ATI's site,
different mouse drivers, different mice, different mouse settings to
disable hardware acceleration/support of the pointers, etc. and BOTTOM
LINE - NOTHING WORKED.

The mouse would ALWAYS disappear after about 4-5 seconds after being
placed over GuidePlus AND the ONLY way I could get it back (and then
EVEN THEN FOR ONLY A FEW SECONDS) was to VERY RAPIDLY 'SWIRL' the
(unseen) Mouse Pointer over G+/the screen for SEVERAL SECONDS and it
would (briefly) come back for a few seconds and then diappear again.

To make a 'long story short': I did some extensive searching on the
nett (Usenet News Group Archives) and stumbled across the following
suggested fix THAT ACTUALLY SEEMS TO WORK.

Now I can't guarantee that it will work for others BUT I can say that
as soon as I did this mod, my GuidePlus Mouse behaviour returned to
normal and ('touch wood') is still working.

Here's the text of the fix/suggestion that I found - if it helps
anyone, please post. (Again), this has been a LONG SUFFERING
IRRITATION for MANY people and ATI to date seems to have been unable
to resolve. (I think I'll Email this to them; maybe they can verify
and/or EXPLAIN WHY it does/seem to,work - don't 'ask me').

Here's the (suggested) fix I found - a registry mod (which again I
cannot take credit for or explain):

****************************************************************************
*******
I had the same problem and found this registry fix workaround in
another group. This worked for me.

Find this key in the registry and change the value to 3. Mine was set
to 4 and the cursor kept disappearing.

After I changed it to 3 it stopped disappearing.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ATI
Technologies\Multimedia\Features\TV\Display]
"DisplaySize"=dword:00000003

Mike...........
****************************************************************************
*
Again: hope this helps somneone....
Click to expand...
 
By the way, Hammer, how do you like your AIW9600 Pro? Do you feel the lack
of DVI connection is significant?



Hammer Toe said:
Yesterday my system became afflicted (and NOT for the first time) with
the above (and seemingly NOT infrequent and VERY annoying) problem
(for MANY people....)

NOTHING fancy about the system: ATI AIW9600 Pro; absolutely 'vanilla'
system with LATEST OS Patches (Windows XP Pro), LATEST Video Drivers
and MMC software from ATI's site AND LATEST version of GuidePlus, and
NOTHING FANCY in terms of installed software. (The PC in question is
used EXCLUSIVLEY for Multi-Media PVR/TV Recording/Playback functions
and has virtually NOTHING on it in terms of SW beyond the OS and ATI
SW.).

What was REALLY annoying when the problem developed was that the
system, Guideplus and the mouse, etc. had been working *****JUST FINE
for several weeks up to and including Friday, June 4th***** and I had
been using G+ to to schedule many recordings using the PVR
functionality of the product and was VERY happy with it.

Then SUDDENLY, yesteday morning (Sat. June 5th), the mouse pointer
started vanishing.

NOTE: NO CHANGES/NOTHING had been made to the system in the
interim!!!!

Well, I tried a LOT of things, everything sugggested on ATI's site,
different mouse drivers, different mice, different mouse settings to
disable hardware acceleration/support of the pointers, etc. and BOTTOM
LINE - NOTHING WORKED.

The mouse would ALWAYS disappear after about 4-5 seconds after being
placed over GuidePlus AND the ONLY way I could get it back (and then
EVEN THEN FOR ONLY A FEW SECONDS) was to VERY RAPIDLY 'SWIRL' the
(unseen) Mouse Pointer over G+/the screen for SEVERAL SECONDS and it
would (briefly) come back for a few seconds and then diappear again.

To make a 'long story short': I did some extensive searching on the
nett (Usenet News Group Archives) and stumbled across the following
suggested fix THAT ACTUALLY SEEMS TO WORK.

Now I can't guarantee that it will work for others BUT I can say that
as soon as I did this mod, my GuidePlus Mouse behaviour returned to
normal and ('touch wood') is still working.

Here's the text of the fix/suggestion that I found - if it helps
anyone, please post. (Again), this has been a LONG SUFFERING
IRRITATION for MANY people and ATI to date seems to have been unable
to resolve. (I think I'll Email this to them; maybe they can verify
and/or EXPLAIN WHY it does/seem to,work - don't 'ask me').

Here's the (suggested) fix I found - a registry mod (which again I
cannot take credit for or explain):

****************************************************************************
*******
I had the same problem and found this registry fix workaround in
another group. This worked for me.

Find this key in the registry and change the value to 3. Mine was set
to 4 and the cursor kept disappearing.

After I changed it to 3 it stopped disappearing.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ATI
Technologies\Multimedia\Features\TV\Display]
"DisplaySize"=dword:00000003

Mike...........
****************************************************************************
*
Again: hope this helps somneone....
Click to expand...
 
By the way, Hammer, how do you like your AIW9600 Pro? Do you feel the lack
of DVI connection is significant?
Click to expand...
All in all, I am QUITE happy with the 9600. I choose it simply because
I wanted a Radeon based All-In-Wonder and I was *NOT* terribly
interested in getting the absolute best possible perf/frameratess etc.
that most gamers seem to pursue.

ALSO I was attracted to/wanted the FM tuner/recording capability that
the card and accompanying software supports/offers..

GuidePlus problems aside, the card and software have proven to be
quite satisfactory for (to me) a reasonable price.

With respect to a DVI output connection: no, the lack of it
didn't/really doesn't bother me. Al my monitor right now are CRT based
and I don't have any really serious plans to go LCD yet AND if I do,
I'll prob. still go analog since I want to be able to switch them with
a KVM switch.
 
Thanks for your reply, Hammer.

Just like you, I don't really care about the frame rate stuff, not a gamer.
I am in it for the mutimedia capabilities. However, I do have plans to get a
flat panel display in the near future.
I am really torn between AIW9000 pro and AIW9600 pro right now, I have both
of them, but can only keep one of them.
On one hand, AIW 9000 support DVI, on the other hand, 9600 have FM tuner but
no DVI support.
I am just wondering how big a difference DVI connection will make on a flat
panel display? without a flat panel display to experiment with, I just don't
have a clue at the moment.
 
Thanks for your reply, Hammer.

Just like you, I don't really care about the frame rate stuff, not a gamer.
I am in it for the mutimedia capabilities. However, I do have plans to get a
flat panel display in the near future.
I am really torn between AIW9000 pro and AIW9600 pro right now, I have both
of them, but can only keep one of them.
On one hand, AIW 9000 support DVI, on the other hand, 9600 have FM tuner but
no DVI support.
I am just wondering how big a difference DVI connection will make on a flat
panel display? without a flat panel display to experiment with, I just don't
have a clue at the moment.
Click to expand...
I'm not any kind of an expert in this area BUT I do seem to recall
reading somewhere that while 'in theory' DVI 'should' (at least in
some cases) result in a better image on an LCD screeen by eliminating
the conversion from digital to analog and then back again, ***IN
PRACTICE*** the difference is undetecable.

'It would seem to me' that unless 'things' get REALLY 'out of
spec/sloppy' in this conversion process, it shouldn't matter
much/result in noticable image degradation. In the end (it seems to
me) 'you' are 'lighting up' a single pixel (ie. light a light bulb)
that can only 'shine' in one color SO the conversion should not result
in any loss of sharpness (again; unless things are really sloppy) and
the only other type of possible degradation I could see happening
might be due to color and/or intensity shift BUT those are generally
(IMHO) tolerable/a matter of personal preference anyway and can (and
are) generally adjustable through user settings/controls.

I think I will perhaps get my feet wet with a small LCD screen in the
not too distant future and while I think I may look for a dual input
product and wind up getting on 'just in case'/for future proofing, I
don't think I will be prepared to pay much extra for the capability
and indeed probably won't wind up using it.
 
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