Cursor problems in Win2K

[Chippo]

I have one user who is having an intermittent problem with the cursor. Once a day or so, the cursor will start moving across the screen with no user intervention. The movement is constant in speed and direction, but not always the same speed or direction. A reboot cures it, but that's pretty irritating way to have to resolve it.

I have done full virus scan, nothing. Checked services and processed running, nothing out of the ordinary - even took screen dums and compared b4 and after, no change. I changed mouse from PS2 to USB, no change. Removed mouse drivers in safe mode and installed Intellipoint 4.0. Even updated system BIOS (Compaq EVO N400c) as Compaq website has some reports of erratic mouse behaviour. All of this and it's still happening, maybe less frequently, but still a problem and it's driving the user CRAZY, which in turn is driving me CRAZY!!

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Krosus]

You have done everything i can think of, but i think you problem may be down to the mobo, i have had very similar trouble with several compaq machines and sent them off had the mobo's replaced and this has solved the problems.
Of course my solution isnt the best way to do things and if you dont have a service contract or warranty it may just be something to put up with unfortunatly or incur the costs.

 

[Chippo]

I have warranty, that's not a problem, just that I don't want to swap the machine out unless I really have to. I guess I could stick another HDD in it and ghost that up to see if I can replicate the problem. Thanks for the advice, I'll see how I get on with this - just wanted to see if I was missing something obvious.

 

[pbxman]

I hear ya Chippo..seems everyone i talk to experiences this at some time or another. Still - I haven't nailed down the exact cause...but can offer what helps from my experience.

In CTRL Panel mouse properties..uncheck "Enable Pointer Shadow", and keep all default settings. (I use an Intellimouse Optical USB and this fixed it for me)

Other than that - it seems software is the culprit..namely 16-bit apps running in the NTVDM. Closing these has always prevented the behavior on our network. The problem is that the erratic mouse only traces across the screen for a moment..then it stops - hardly a reason to act on the network policies on my end.

I've tried increasing the mouse buffer size in the registry as well, and to be honest - it has really seemed to help. Depending on what port this user uses for the mouse - the results i get were with i8042prt in:
hklm/system/currentcontrolset/services/i8042prt/parameters, and set the "MouseDataQueueSize" to 300 (decimal). While im in there, i set the keyboard to the same value.

If you're not using i8042, you're most likely using msi8042..the same thing applies.

Thats about as much as i've ever been able to do with the issue - and it has definitely helped. But - it's gotta be software doing it because the mouse is known good..doesnt do it on any other OS i've used it with...just 2K.

Hope that helps. pbxman
Systems Administrator

Please let Tek-Tips members know their posts were helpful.

 

[Chippo]

Thanks, I'll give that stuff a try and see how it goes.

 

[garwain]

I went through the same thing last year with an older computer on my network. Tried all the logical stuff and nothing cured it. Eventually went with the technicians default solutions... format and re-install (well actually I did that for because the user managed to later FUBAR the system, but it cured the mouse problem ...)

 

[Chippo]

Yeah, I had figured that would be a solution, but it oains me to have to reinstall for something so basic!!!
That was my last resort, if I can't actually fix this.

Thanks.