Mouse cursor freezes for short while

[Don]

I've been having a problem recently (actually for a long time) where
the mouse cursor will freeze in place for about 3 seconds, then it
will resume following the mouse movements. This seems to occur on a
regular basis about every 30 seconds. When I look at system
performance, I see a spike where something is consuming pretty much
all the CPU. I noticed when that occurs, the process "SYSTEM" appears
to be the process eating up the CPU cycles. Any idea what's going on
here? I'm running a recent (yesterday) installation of Windows XP Pro
on an HP Presario 900 laptop. It did it before this installation,
where I was running Windows XP Home Edition. I formatted the entire
HD when I installed XP Pro.

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks,
Don

 

[Rich Barry]

Don, you may want to check for trojans, spyware and adware. You can
use these sites

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

http://safespy.net/Spyware_Hunter.htm

http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/

http://spybot-spyware.com/trojan.htm

http://www.spysweeper.com/

http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/

 

[Don]

Hi Rich,

I just reinstalled Windows XP Pro after having formatted the HD.
Then, immediately installed Norton Systemworks, followed by Spybot,
and Free Surfer MK II. I did all that before I accessed anything on
the net.

Don

 

[Plato]

I've been having a problem recently (actually for a long time) where
the mouse cursor will freeze in place for about 3 seconds, then it

Often due to spyware. Or even some legit apps you have set to phone
home.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I just reinstalled Windows XP Pro after having formatted the HD.
Then, immediately installed Norton Systemworks, followed by Spybot,
and Free Surfer MK II. I did all that before I accessed anything on
the net.

The vital one you missed was to enable the XP Firewall. Without that or
as yet the specific patches, you will be hit within a minute by Blast or
Sasser. And the way they get in, via a direct attack through the
NETBIOS ports evades the normal checks that an AV package does on files

See http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_w.htm#worm
for removal scripts. But get the firewall up first