Workround for USB mouse freezes / lockups

  • Thread starter Thread starter Yves Leclerc
  • Start date Start date
Y

Yves Leclerc

Probably not a USB hardware problem with your system. I have seen bad USB
device drivers that will not release resources after the device is
un-plugged.
 
I see a couple of other people have been having problems with USB mice.
I've suddenly hit the same problem just in the last 48 hours.

This is on a XP Home box that's religiously patched and I'm pretty
cautious about what goes on it - Office XP, Macromedia Studio MX, Opera
and a couple of the big name open source apps like Apache/PHP, Audacity
etc. But aside from the bloaty rubbish of Acrobat Reader bringing any
browser it's run from, this kit has been rock solid for two years.

Suddenly in the last two days I've had problems - first manifested
itself by freezing when the screensaver was on, but know I've found out
it's the mouse pointer freezing. Sometimes the rest of the system is
usable - you can Alt-Tab etc, most of the time it's not, guess it
depends at what point the freeze comes. However, I discovered that
while unplugging/plugging the mouse (Logitech MX500 - great mouse BTW)
doesn't seem to work, _I could unfreeze the system by plugging in my
JetFlash USB memory key_ - sometimes it took a couple of goes, and it
seemed to take longer after the second freeze in a session, but it does
work almost every time. Which makes me think that it's more likely to
be a USB problem than a mouse-specific problem. I've got the autoplay
options box coming up when I plug the key in, of that makes any
difference.

Certainly in the time that it's been apparent, I've suddenly been doing
a lot of work with my Fuji Finepix A310 digicam, so a lot of plugging
and unplugging into the front USB ports of my Asus A7V8X-based PC - and
using my memory key too in the same ports. This again makes me think
that it's a USB thing.

Like I say, this is a system that's been working fine for a long time,
and that has been looked after - only new software in the last month or
so has been the new version of Pegasus Mail the other day. It's
possible that Pegasus is somehow responsible, but seems unlikely - my
feeling is that I am seeing the same problem as others that was mebbe
introduced in one of the Windows updates, and only becomes apparent when
there's a lot of USB plugging/unplugging going on.

Interested to hear others' thoughts on the USB theory - and hope the
'plug in a USB memory key' (or other USB device?) trick works for other
people :-)
 
I assume the wireless transceiver is (normally) plugged
into the docking station . . . I assume you move it to the
laptop when you undock ? You don't say. ( I hate to
assume, don't you? )

Have you checked the (wireless) manufacturer's web site
for a driver update ? Have you looked at their FAQs ?

Are the keyboard and mouse attached via a USB hub ? Do you
move the hub or just the keyboard and mouse ?

Have you looked in the Event Viewer for a clue ?

Good Luck !
 
Interested to hear others' thoughts on the USB theory - and hope the
'plug in a USB memory key' (or other USB device?) trick works for other
people :-)
Click to expand...

I don't think it's a USB problem because the issue initially arose for
me when my mouse was plugged into the PS/2 port.

--
Howie
"The very belief that violence is unavoidable
is a root cause of violence."
Samdhong Rinpoche
1st Democratically Elected Chairman of the
Tibetan Cabinet-in-Exile
 
I assume the wireless transceiver is (normally) plugged
into the docking station . . . I assume you move it to the
laptop when you undock ? You don't say. ( I hate to
assume, don't you? )
Click to expand...

You're assuming that I've got a laptop - the A7V8X is an ATX board ;-/
And the MX500 isn't wireless, it's the wired version of the MX700.
Plugged directly into the PC, no hubs involved, keyboard isn't even USB
- it's an old IBM KB8926.

Have you checked the (wireless) manufacturer's web site
for a driver update ? Have you looked at their FAQs ?
Click to expand...

No :-) But I have heard of people having the odd problem with the
later Logitech drivers, whereas 9.70 has been rock-solid for me for the
last year or so, so I'm reluctant to change. Just seems a mighty
strange coincidence that having not changed any drivers on this machine
for >6 months, but Windowsupdated regularly it suddenly has problems on
the two days when I'm doing a lot of USB plugging/unplugging - I had a
similar period of USB fiddling a couple of months ago and didn't have
this problem. I'm not that bothered to be honest - for the time being
I'll just see how it goes, if the problem repeats when I'm not using the
camera, I'll investigate further. The flash key trick will suffice when
I'm USBing actively - just thought it was worth mentioning as looking at
the recent history of this group there seems to have been a number of
people with USB mice freezing.
 
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