Mouse and keyboard freeze

My first post to this site. Hope my PC specs are uploaded properly.


For about the past month or so the mouse (and keyboard) on my Dell laptop with Win 7 Professional freezes up sporadically (maybe about once an hour on average, although it can be shorter or longer). Then the only option is to turn off the computer with a hard shutdown (then on restart I pick “start windows normally”).
The main application in which this happens is Windows Live Mail 2012, but it also happens in Firefox. (but most time is spent in WLM, so….). Another observation is that while starting up after shutdown the cursor can be almost non responsive for a few minutes while all the startups are applied (the only startup programs enabled are Avira plus the normal display and system drivers from Microsoft, Dell and Intel).
Tried updating both the generic keyboard and mouse drivers, but the message is “best driver already installed”. The mouse driver has two drivers, C:\...\mouclass.sys and mouhid.sys. Both drivers have the same file name. version 6.1.7600 16385
Tried switching out mice- but two different mice both show the problem.
I have done multiple malware scans with different applications but nothing showed up- PC clean.
No other obvious problems with the operation of the PC.


????

BernK said:

For about the past month or so the mouse (and keyboard) on my Dell laptop with Win 7 Professional freezes up sporadically (maybe about once an hour on average, although it can be shorter or longer). Then the only option is to turn off the computer with a hard shutdown (then on restart I pick “start windows normally”).

I am having the exact same problem. The computer has run fine for years, but now suddenly this. I have updated all of my drivers, run a complete system virus scan, and ran MemTest 86 to check for bad memory but nothing has helped so far. Most annoying!

Good luck in finding a solution!

Paul Black said:

Hi BernK & technomann,

HYave you installed any new software or updates recently that could have caused this.
Have you tried any restore points made prior to this happening?

Paul,


I've tried my oldest remaining restore point which is only about a month old- probably after it started happening. As expected it didn't work. I do have a system image that goes back about 9 months on my backup disk, but haven't tried this and don't know if I want to risk it.



I intend to try a system file check as in this old post regarding this problem
Keyboard and mouse freeze up intermittently


However, I was not able to launch the file checker- need to try again.


technomann, if you haven't tried this already, use a different mouse. This seemed to work for two older posts.


--BernK

Paul Black said:

Hi BernK & technomann,

HYave you installed any new software or updates recently that could have caused this.
Have you tried any restore points made prior to this happening?

Paul,


I've tried my oldest remaining restore point which is only about a month old- probably after it started happening. As expected it didn't work. I do have a system image that goes back about 9 months on my backup disk, but haven't tried this and don't know if I want to risk it.



I intend to try a system file check as in this old post regarding this problem
Keyboard and mouse freeze up intermittently


However, I was not able to launch the file checker- need to try again.


technomann, if you haven't tried this already, use a different mouse. This seemed to work for two older posts.


--BernK

BernK said:

while starting up after shutdown the cursor can be almost non responsive for a few minutes while all the startups are applied

When startup time varies from short to very long, it usually means one of two things
1 - the hard drive is going bad intermittently
2 - some other piece of hardware is going bad intermittently forcing windows to struggle to load its driver at startup.

Assuming you do NOT have an SSD, my money is on the hard drive.

johnhoh said:

When startup time varies from short to very long, it usually means one of two things
1 - the hard drive is going bad intermittently
2 - some other piece of hardware is going bad intermittently forcing windows to struggle to load its driver at startup.

Assuming you do NOT have an SSD, my money is on the hard drive.

________________________________________________________________________________



I DO have a SSD. But now that you mention it the CD drive keeps turning off and on. However, it seems to work fine. The system has passed Dell hardware checks for what it is worth.


Thanks for the suggestion.


My money is still on some problem with the mouse hardware/interface. Currently testing a possible solution - will post it if successful for extended period.

Megahertz07 said:

Welcome to the Forum

- The USB ports on a Skylake computer is controlled by the chipset. My suggestion is to see if Intel has a updated driver.
Download Intel(R) Management Engine Driver for Windows 7*, 8.1*, and Windows(R) 10

Chipset
Download Chipset INF Utility
http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList..._100series.zip

- Check your disk. Open a CMD window as admin and type:
chkdsk c: /f
It will say that the disk is in use and if you want do schedule to next start = yes

- Do a system file check. Open a CMD window as admin and type:
sfc /scannow

Not sure if you are talking to me (original poster of cursor freeze) or another respondent. I have a Dell not Skylake.


However,, I did an sfc scan as you suggested. Results:


"Windows resource protection did not find any integrity violations"



But I have had some success in changing harware/environment.


1. Changed from one wired optical usb mouse to a different wired optical usb mouse. So, same driver (generic usb mouse). But the frequency of freezes was reduced- maybe to less than 1/2 as often.
2. Second change; my old mouse pad was a dark maroon desk pad. I started to use a white paper tablet instead. This resulted in a few very noticeable changes.
2a. The cursor seemed to follow my hand movement much better with less lag; think moving left and right fairly rapidly- with the old dark pad there was a little delay when changing from l to r. This was less with the white paper pad.
2b. The other change is that I went for almost a week so far without another cursor freeze.



My guess is that with the dark pad there was a lot of noise in the location data coming out of the mouse, and the process that uses that data to produce an on screen delay was not able to keep up properly. With the white pad the mouse data is much more clean and easier to process.


This still doesn't explain why I was able to operate for several years without a freeze using the dark pad. So I'm guessing that there is still something wrong with the mouse driver. But when I tried to look for a new driver I get the comment "you have the optimum driver".



As I just said, I did run a sfc and got a good integrity check.


So ???

Think about all the plugs you use - your wall outlet, your 3.5mm headphones, your ethernet, your monitor, your usb - the usb connector is bat far the most fragile electrically, it has weakest squeezing together of male and female. The designers of USB knew this and tried to compensate for it by having an extra large surface area between male and female, which helps compensate. But over time, especially on a laptop where folks are plugging/unplugging into the us ports a lot, a degree of conductivity can be lost. Long story short, try a different usb port. I think you have two usb2 and one usb3 port to try on that machine. But if they all produce the same symptoms, you can rule out this theory.