Summary: Bizarre actions from your mouse may mean its imminent death, however there are a few less extreme causes of sensitivity and other odd actions.
My mouse is super sensitive and seems to do things on its own. What do I do?
Most of us have come to rely very heavily on our mouse - even those of us such as myself who are still mostly keyboard users. And when it starts to act up, it can be a very serious issue and an annoying one.
Let's look at a few things.
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The most immediate and obvious thing that comes to mind is the hardware itself:
Clean the mouse. Dirt can easily cause the mouse to misbehave. And optical mice are not immune; I find myself needing to clean mine every few weeks.
Check for interference. This applies to wireless mice. It's possible that radio interference could cause some confusion. The thing to look for is a short, clear path between the mouse and its receiver and no powerful electronic devices between.
Replace the batteries. The number one cause for this behavior in wireless mice is dying batteries. Replace them and see what happens.
Check the cable. For cabled mice, a quick test is to wiggle the cable where it joins the mouse and back at the connector, and if that causes activity then the cable is probably bad. Also check for any crimps in the wire that may have also damaged it.
Update your BIOS. If the erratic behavior starts after installing or upgrading to Windows 2000 or Windows XP, then check this article from Microsoft Support: Mouse Jumps or Behaves Erratically After Installing Windows 2000 or Windows XP. The problem might be your computer.
If you have a chance, swap your mouse with another. I have a small graveyard of old mice that I hang onto for just this purpose. They all work, they're just old and dirty, but they come in very handy to determine if a problem I'm seeing is my current mouse or something else.
It is worth checking your settings as well. Unfortunately exactly how will vary dramatically depending on the manufacturer. In Control Panel should be an item labeled Mouse or similar. Items to look for are things like "sensitivity" or "pointer speed". Review the button assignments to make sure that they're correct.
Mouse move options like "snap to" will cause the mouse to move to specific points under certain conditions. These options can easily confuse if you're not prepared for them, so make sure they're what you want or turn them off.
But to be totally honest, the type of wild behavior described is more often than not your mouse's death knell.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - Why does the mouse pointer jump around the screen?
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Ask Leo! - Why does my computer go nuts sometimes?
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Microsoft - Mouse Jumps or Behaves Erratically After Installing Windows 2000 or Windows XP
Article C2030 - June 12, 2004
i have a inspiron 2650 and i use the touchpad. whenever i try typing alot of times it moves the cursor to somewhere else in what i am typng even if i dont click. can you help me?
Posted by: devorah leah at January 12, 2009 2:09 PMI use the touch pad. I've been having an issue where when I type suddenly what I am typing will move into the document elsewhere on it's own. I was blogging and all of sudden it highlighted then deleted a section. I'm not sure what to do to fix this. I just sent the computer out yesterday and they removed a ton of virus' I had. Now everything except this issue seems okay.
Posted by: Nicole at February 4, 2009 8:26 AMi use
the touch pad on my laptop but the thing is so sensitive as i slide it over the screen it just clicks on something i dont want
please help
Posted by: arthur erasmi at March 28, 2009 12:21 PMMine is a wireless mouse/keyboard [Advent] I had them replaced on April 4th this year because the mouse gave up the ghost. Now this mouse works for a while then suddenly takes on a life of its own. I then used a wired mouse which occasionally behaves oddly. I then go back to the wireless one. I have tried everything.
Posted by: Bendigedig at April 30, 2009 2:37 AMafter looking at this site i decided to use the spare usb i have and plug another mouse in this got the mpveng one jealous and it stopped moving
Posted by: ginger at June 8, 2009 11:09 AMunplugged the new one and its been alright since
I'm reading the article / page from an IBM celeron 366Mhz with win2k and decided to read all the comments when I found this:
When I float the mouse pointer over a file, a window comes up, telling me the address or contents of the file...
How do I delete that option???
Thanks...
Rick...
Posted by: rick at March 7, 2006 11:58 AM
I don't believe you can.
Posted by: Leo at March 7, 2006 12:00 PM
Here's the solution:
a) open Windows Exploder
b) open Tools > Folder Options
c) in folder options select the "View" tab
scroll down through the options until you find an option that reads:
"Show Pop-up description for folder & desktop items"
the Option is available to un-check in both Win2K & XP, I don't know about vista? because I don't "won't" use vista
one solution I found that worked for me to cure the
Posted by: XP Guest Account acting like Win2K Guest Account at September 6, 2009 8:34 PM"Run Away Mouse"
is to use an older style PS/2 or USB "Ball" mouse as soon as I tossed the Optical out the problem quit on the Dell Optiplex I usually work on.
My curor jumps around when I'm typing whether my mouse is plugged in or not.
Posted by: Gordon Broussard at September 7, 2009 7:16 AMMy mouse moves across the screen on its own. I found it was the vibration of the PC fans that the mouse was sensing.
Posted by: John H at September 8, 2009 3:10 PMWhen I bought a new PC a couple of years ago my mouse cursor would go zooming off at random too. Just before I packed it up and took it in for "repairs" I tried a different mousepad. The one that worked for my optical mouse was a dark colored cloth one. The "defective" one was shiny pebbled plastic. I guessed sometimes the light would bounce off the pebbles in random directions.
For the Gary, who had mouse disappear off the side of the screen, if he was using a CRT monitor use the controls on the monitor to confirm that the image is properly sized (ie not to big) and properly centered (ie in direction mouse was disappearing). I had a problem like that when I first setup that new PC, I pushed the screen resolution up beyond what the older monitor could handle, so I also had mouse and programs disappearing off all 4 sides.
Posted by: Ron at September 8, 2009 10:17 PMI was having a problem with a new laptop using Vista. The text was highlighting, and web pages and links were opening on their own as I moved the cursor around with the touch pad!
Posted by: Lucy at October 1, 2009 10:40 AMThe solution was in the Control Panel.. Mouse ... In Mouse Properties the "tapping" tab, I unchecked "tapping" and all seems to be good!