mouse freezing in XP

[sha]

I'm having a problem with my pc's mouse intermittently freezing. There
doesn't appear to be anything that I can do to "un-freeze" it, other than do
a manual shutdown and restart.

I've not been able to pinpoint any specific set of circumstances that causes
it to happen - sometimes it's happened simply when I've double clicked to
open My Documents, or it can happen when using any program whatsoever. Any
open programs continue to run fine whilst the mouse is "stuck".

It doesn't appear to be a CPU issue, as the Task Manager (which I can still
open after the mouse has frozen) will show normal CPU usage (i.e. varying
depending on the programs tasks being carried out)

Things I have tried so far:

Defragmenting the hard drive
Running anti-virus and anti-spyware programs (both came up negative)
Updating the video-driver
Un and re-installing the mouse driver
Using a different mouse

Not tried so far:

Reformatting - I would like to avoid this for the moment if possible, due to
the amount of backing up I will need to do!

The other weirdness on my PC at present is that DOOM3 has started running
with a very noticeable lag/jitteriness - I only mention this in case it may
help explain what's going on (I'm wondering if there is some sort of
bottleneck somewhere in the system)

PC stats:

Athlon XP3200+
512mb (not a huge amount, but my PC has run fine on it for almost 2 years)
Windows XP Home (SP2)
Bog standard PS2 mouse

Any help/advice will be gratefully received!

Regards

Sha

 

[John John]

Might be time for a new mouse, these things don't last forever. Try a
different mouse or try the mouse you have on another pc. If it exhibits
the same problems on a different pc then you will know it's defective.

John

 

[sha]

Might be time for a new mouse, these things don't last forever. Try a
different mouse or try the mouse you have on another pc. If it exhibits
the same problems on a different pc then you will know it's defective.

John

Thanks for the suggestion, John. I've changed mouse and still have the same
probelm.

Sha

 

[John John]

Go in the Control Panel and open the Mouse applet and use the
troubleshooter to see if it can fix or detect anything. Look in the
Device Manager to see if anything is awry with the hardware detection.
What kind of mouse is this? It might have the wrong drivers. BEWARE
changing mouse drivers for the wrong ones! You might have a nasty surprise!

John