I posted this elsewhere but maybe it belongs better here...

Today my mouse has started acting up..... it beeps and the arrow freezes often times until I reboot. It does this every so often now but hasn't this log on. Is this a virus or a hardware problem? Just hoping I haven't been hijacked again behind the scenes. I've run all my spyware stuff but that hasn't cured it. I have Norton and ZoneAlarm so I wouldn't think anything would get through but anynore I wouldn't be surprised.
Please advise..... and thanks in advance!

Krooz

(it just beeped again.... the mouse froze just for a second and all the icons on the toolbar blinked)

Hi Krooz

I've never heard a mouse beep. I think this is more likely a warning from your Motherboard that you have an overheating problem. Freezing and random crashing/rebooting are symptoms of this.

Do you have any motherboard monitoring software? If you reboot, and press Delete repeatadly you will be taken to the Bios screen. Look for an area called something like Hardware Monitor and use the arrow keys to highlight that and press enter. Post back with the temperatures shown there or the temps you get from your mobo monitoring software.

Post back with the name and model number of your motherboard if known. Also Everest Home Edition will report your temps if your mobo supports that function.

Leurgy.... thanks for the reply. Yeah, it really wasn't the mouse beeping, rather the mouse/curser would freeze when the computer beeped. Anyway, I did what you said on Friday and that was all she wrote. The computer would not boot up again. Kaput as they they say. So, it's sitting in the shop right now... had to go the whole weekend without. At least I paid the bills before it went belly up. Should find out the problem today.

Thanks

Krooz

Sounds like the overheating problem has done too much damage to recover from. That can happen. Sorry for your luck. Please post back with the results of what the shop found as it may show some other users the dangers of overheating and the consequences.

Well, the shop called. They said it is not a hardware problem but rather software... namely the computer is so infested with spyware and/or viruses that they need to pretty well wipe it clean and reload my programs. Seems odd with all I've been through lately getting it cleaned up here with HJT and all plus steps I've taken to ensure protection.

I question this, but I'm no expert so they've kind of got me by the you know whats....

Krooz

Well...........................

It will be interesting to see if its still beeping when they are done with that.

I'm in a small town with one computer shop. His solution to a virus infection is a new motherboard and a hard drive. Thats a crock as far as I'm concerned.

Please keep us posted.

Yeah, there will be some discussion if it still locks up, I promise! I just can't believe it could have gotten that infected again, but it's definetely ill and I need it back. I don't know if $200 is ridiculous or not but I guess with hourly shop rates being what they are maybe it's in line. I will post back once this is sorted out.

Krooz

How can it be possible for Krooz's computer to be infested still, after all of the cleaning and security measures he has taken?

Is it posible, by any stretch of the imagination?

Im curious how this will play out as well.

It's possible. But without seeing the machine myself its very hard to say. I will stick out my neck this far and say that it doesn't fit the symptons originally described. Beeping and random freeze ups more than likely indicate a hardware overheating problem.

Krooz, where you able to see any temperatures when you went into the bios?

I never got that far. When I shut down and and tapped on delete to get to the Bios as suggested I got nothing.... black screen and that's it. Repeated tries to reboot got me no where.... it would click once and just sit there. No apparent harddrive activity.

I thought I was free after the cleanup - computer was faster than ever and I had no issues until Friday morning. A couple of times that morning when it beeped it would jump to the top of the page I was in, mostly it would just freeze though. I'm a little disturbed as I think I might be getting hosed but don' t know enough to do anything about it.

Krooz

Well, here's the results... (and this can only happen to me). After spending 200 bucks to get things fixed (allegedly due to total infestation) I get the computer home from the shop last night. I plugged everything in and boot it up - and it just sits there like it did last Friday. The light for the hardrive clicks on but it's not loading, just sitting there like a toad. Unplug the mouse and she boots up just fine but the mouse won't function after plugging it back it. Plug the mouse in and try booting again - it sits there. So, at 9 o'clock last night it's off to Wally World, get home and plug in the new mouse - it boots up and works just fine. So, it appears the mouse was the issue the whole time!(?). I think I just got hosed by the repair shop but I don't think I have any recourse since they did work on it, formating everything and all, I just don't have a warm and fuzzy feeling about their work being necessary.

Anyone ever see this before? Seems strange to me that having the mouse plugged in could actually keep the computer from booting up but that's exactly what happened.

Krooz

Well, that sucks. Would have been too easy to just try a new mouse. I've never heard of a mouse doing anything remotely like that. I've used a computer without a mouse for a couple of weeks just to learn the keyboard, though.

Repair shops have standard things they do because diagnosing a problem can take a long time and they don't get any money for that.

Reprogramming a computer is fairly simple if you are prepared with the XP CD, motherboard drivers and peripheral drivers. You can burn the installation programs for your preferred anti-virus and firewall too. Thats actually top dollar for what they did. You could reprogram that computer yourself in a couple of hours.

Sorry I didn't suggest changing out the mouse but as I said I've never heard one generate a beep.

Yeah, the sad thing is I thought about going out and just trying a new mouse when things were beeping and freezing up.... I never thought to do that though once the computer wouldn't even reboot. Didn't occur to me that a mouse would/could do that.

Live and learn. I'm thinking about calling the shop to complain but I can't disprove their claim about the virus.... I truly think that's BS. The help I received from this site has been outstanding and things were running great again until Friday. Maybe I just need to let it go and move on.

Thanks

Krooz

I dunno if this thread is dead by now but.... I had exactly the same problem (mouse freezing momentarily and beeping from the inside of the computer). At first I thought it was the keyboard and then I thought it might be overheating but after a wasted 20 bucks and a few temperature checks the problem was still there. Just now I tried out a friend's mouse (should have done that with the keyboard too) and the problem seems to be solved. It doesn't really make sense to me but if anyone has any idea as to how the mouse could have caused the beeping I'd be interested to hear it. (I don't remember what kind of mouse I had..it was just a plug and play thing.... it was a laser mouse if that makes a difference.... but then so was the replacement)

Ok after a few more tests and observations it seems like my old mouse occasionally cuts out completely (due to broken connections inside?) but quickly comes back on as it is moved around. Since it is a laser mouse I can see that it sometimes goes completely black instead of the usual dull-red resting position. I'm guessing the beep is the computer re-registering the mouse evertime?

Any thoughts would still be appreciated but I think that, if anyone else reads this and has the same problem, it is just time to get a new mouse.