My usb optical mouse is jumpy (takes off and goes a different
direction than I am moving.) I have seen this behaviour on many pc's
with usb mice. When the mouse is plugged into an old ordinary mouse
port with the little green adaptor the problem goes away.  I now have
a portable without a mouse port, how do I fix?  If it helps, I have
seen this problem with more than one brand including logitech and dell
mice.

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Request for Question Clarification by techtor-ga on 16 Nov 2004 07:01 PST

Deltacharlie,
I've experienced this kind of problem when my Motorola cellphone is
situated too close to the mouse. The mouse pointer will jump downward
even when I'm not moving the mouse. I suppose microwaves or whatever
radio waves the cellphone uses cause interference. Are there such
sources of radiowave or microwaves in that place where the mouse is
used?

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Clarification of Question by deltacharlie-ga on 17 Nov 2004 12:17 PST

Electromagnetic radiation is possible at some of the sites I have
observed this phonomena.  Our office is next to a large high voltage
corridor. Also, at home I was using a 17 inch lcd display attached to
my portable, it was quite close to the mouse, a collegue at our office
moved his lcd monitor about 6" further away from his mouse and his
mouse appears to be much better.  It also occurs to me I have not
observed this issue with infrared battery driven optical mice but my
sample size is quite small to draw conclusion.

probonopublico-ga:  The reason we use so many optical mice is 'dirt'
... some of our offices can get quite dirty and the mouse balls were
just about as bad after a few weeks.

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Request for Question Clarification by endo-ga on 17 Nov 2004 12:58 PST

Hi,

I belive this happens when CPU utilization is high and when you don't
have the drivers installed for your chipset/motherboard.

Do you know what motherboard/laptop you have?

Thanks.
endo

Why use an optical mouse?

I HATE them!

Try a non-optical type and your problem may be blown away.