While I'm here checking out another unrelated issue (in the Windows forum), I thought I'd ask about something that's been bugging me for a while.
My mouse - a Dynek wireless with a charger, as opposed to run on batteries - has always had a somewhat ill-behaved scroll wheel. If I scroll down on, say, this page, not only will the motion be very jerky but it won't be consistently downward either - it will go something like two jerks down, one jerk up, two or three more down, one more up, even if I am smoothly moving the wheel in one direction. Thus, pages I'm trying to scroll on shake up and down in a manner that is extremely unpleasant and sometimes mildly nauseating to look at, and while they generally trend in the direction I tell them to, the process is slower than it should be.
I used to think it was just me being sloppy or something, but I don't have the problem with other mouse wheels and it happens no matter how careful I am to scroll smoothly. Installing Vista this week (as opposed to XP which I had before) didn't change anything, and last time I checked I had the most up to date drivers available (though Vista switched me over to a generic driver; the situation neither improved nor deteriorated further as a result).
Check in your Device Manager to be sure you have no yellow or red warnings, particularly with regard to USB controllers.
Did you install the Vista specific Chipset Drivers? - particularly any drivers for USB?
Consider moving the "sensor" to a different USB port, for instance, if plugged into a front panel USB port, move to one of the USB ports at the back of the machine. Front Panel USB ports are notoriously more problematic than those on the back.
Consider a USB 2.0 PCI card.
Open up the mouse (carefully) and inspect the wheel and axel for dirt.
No red or yellow in the Device Mangler, and it does not appear to be possible to open up the mouse (no obvious screws or anything).
I'll try the chipset drivers and report what happens, though that sounds more likely to fix my other issue than this one; I'm pretty sure I've switched USB ports multiple times without effect but I'll try it again.
Actually, looking at AMD's site, there don't appear to be Vista chipset drivers, apart from the drivers that came with Vista itself. (Which I have no reason to suspect are faulty apart from the strange sound I'm reporting in my other thread; there's no obvious missing functionality and no problems being reported by Device Manager, and this mouse problem has persisted for quite some time.)
How does your wireless mouse communicate with its sensor pickup?
Presumably RF.
Having a cordless phone near your computer or near the mouse/sensor can interfere
Anything like that?
If not, about the only other consideration is to clear out your junk files, temps and cookies, defrag your HD and do the other things of maintenance that you would ordinarily do to put your machine in top shape.
How much RAM do you have……… I don't want to hear that you have less than 2gb!
Didn't you say that this was an older machine that you built yourself some years ago.
Please forgive that I'm not remembering exactly from your other posts.
If so, you USB may not be 2.0 compliant
You can buy a USB 2.0 PCI card for under $20 and have higher speed USB with up to four new ports.
Just thinking out loud.
Best Regards
I guess going USB 2.0 is my best bet, since you're quite right - I know for a fact I don't have that now. Built the machine at a time when it was a brand new thing, around a mobo that while decent, was never top-of-the-line and was about half a year old at the time. I had no idea the cards for 2.0 it were so cheap.
Not sure what RF even is, but there's no cordless phones around (no land line in the apartment, in fact). The closest thing I can think of would be my wireless network - don't suppose that would be the culprit? You'd think the mouse would be designed not to interfere with or get interference from that…
Since you don't want to hear that I have less than 2 GB of RAM, I guess I won't mention that I only have 1.5, and that only because of an upgrade from this week… but this is a mouse we're talking about. It's not like I'm trying to do video editing or play the latest FPS here. Surely it can't be that resource-intensive? If it were, I would consider that a design flaw on the manufacturer's part…
Vista runs "best" with 2gb RAM.
Your 1.5gb is adequate, but you would probably notice performance improvement if you are able to move to 2gb
Might want to look around at TigerDirect and NewEgg. They have some attractive prices on DDR RAM.
You're right, it is only a manual input mouse, not a monster video editing application.
I was being too casual in my comment. I apologize.
Another thing you may want to consider is having a look at StartUp applications and processes that you may not need to have running and consuming system resources.
You would be welcome to upload the Starters report as an .html
In CodeStuff-Starters - on the StartUp Tab - Select File - Save as .html
Name the file Starters (today's date).html
Upload as an attached file in your next reply.
RF is radio frequency communication. IF is infra red - line of sight communication.
It is remarkable how much a cordless phone can interfere, so I was just checking.
You might want to be sure that the mouse sensor is not located right up close to your monitor, speakers, or any other electronic device.
12-18 inch separation should be fine.
The problem might be very simple indeed. The sensor is right next to my speakers and monitor, and for that matter less than a foot from the top of my case and so quite close to some of the drives, and moderately close to the power supply, of the computer itself.
It would be a bit of a production to rearrange this, but I've had it in the back of my head to do so for a while now. I'll do that tonight and see if it helps.
Thanks for all the other info. I probably won't upgrade the RAM since I just did, and I'm probably replacing my mobo and all that goes with it in about a year anyway. But that doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of interesting and helpful stuff in your posts; thanks a lot!
(I figure on doing a major upgrade right around when the first service pack for Windows 7 comes out.)
Interesting plan…. and prudent I think, to wait at least until the first service pack of Window 7.
People are actually quite pleased with it in pre-release, but I've never liked being an early adopter.
Keep us posted on your progress in this Thread.
Others may benefit from your work and success.
Best Regards,
Doug
Well, moving everything around so the receiver for the mouse isn't within a foot of anything remotely electronic didn't help; the same thing is still happening. At this point my guess is that it's the mechanism itself that's at fault, and I can't look at that since the mouse has no obvious way to be opened. I will order a USB 2.0 card soon for independent reasons, and if that helps, great. Otherwise, I've been living with this problem for nearly a year now; while annoying, it's not the end of the world. Besides, in most cases I can work around the problem by center-clicking and dragging, which is often more convenient anyway, if easier to lose control of.
(By the way, does anyone know what that round thing that appears on your screen when you do that is called?)
Probably does, but I don't know what it is.
You may find its name in Control Panel - Mouse <– click once to open Mouse Properties.
You may also find some settings (faster/slower, lines per click, etc.) that benefit your mouse performance.
Doug
Didn't you say that this was an older machine that you built yourself some years ago.
Please forgive that I'm not remembering exactly from your other posts.
If so, you USB may not be 2.0 compliant
You can buy a USB 2.0 PCI card for under $20 and have higher speed USB with up to four new ports.
Just thinking out loud.
Best Regards
The problem might be very simple indeed. The sensor is right next to my speakers and monitor, and for that matter less than a foot from the top of my case and so quite close to some of the drives, and moderately close to the power supply, of the computer itself.
It would be a bit of a production to rearrange this, but I've had it in the back of my head to do so for a while now. I'll do that tonight and see if it helps.
Thanks for all the other info. I probably won't upgrade the RAM since I just did, and I'm probably replacing my mobo and all that goes with it in about a year anyway. But that doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of interesting and helpful stuff in your posts; thanks a lot!
(I figure on doing a major upgrade right around when the first service pack for Windows 7 comes out.)
Interesting plan…. and prudent I think, to wait at least until the first service pack of Window 7.
People are actually quite pleased with it in pre-release, but I've never liked being an early adopter.
Keep us posted on your progress in this Thread.
Others may benefit from your work and success.
Best Regards,
Doug
