BleepingComputer.com: Mouse Moves By Itself / Zooms To Start Button

I have a major mouse /pointing device problem.

It behaves in a way that makes me think it is not hardware-related.

This is on a Samsung X1 laptop running Win XP SP2. If I plug in an external USB mouse then this works fine untl the problem happens again. This laptop is made with a keyboard pointing stick but has no touchpad.

It's like this:

1. At the signon screen and for a few minutes after starting up, the mouse is dead in the water. The laptop pointing stick does not work at all.
2. After a few minutes the mouse is suddenly available and responsive, all seems to work fine. (As if some piece of software has kicked in)
3. Suddenly the mouse pointer runs to bottom left corner of screen. If I use the real mouse I am battling against it, pushing the opposite way. While it kicks in, it's just like someone else is using another mouse in the opposite direction on the same pointer. Mouse may then suddenly decide to head upwards and stick at top of screen, although bottom left is the most common.
4. then it works fine for a while- say 5 - 30 mins, depending, then without warning it repeats aa in number 3. or similar again.

I have tried a lot of googles, which talk about hardware issues. i don't think it is hardware because of the way it kicks in for a minute or so and then stops, on and off. Also the same thing happens with an external mouse. I have now managed to disable the built-in pointer and plug in a USB mouse, but the same thing happens. This means the problem is not in the mouse hardware.

I've uninstalled the mouse and reinstalled the drivers. Every time I uninstall the mouse , by deleting it in device manager it reinstalls itself. The external normal USB mouse can be uninstalled and reinstalled and disabled but the embedded pointing device mouse does not let itself be deleted in device manager. It stays permanently in Device manager even when deleted.

I went through the registry manually and removed all traces of the mouse driver. I copied the keys for a standard microsoft mouse driver. Then I hit add/remove programs and the thing reinstalled.

I can't use my laptop a lot nowadays because the *** mouse is doing this dive all over the place without warning.
A lot of the time it is rock-solid, no diving or drift then all of a sudden it takes off as if someone is dragging it to the left and down. then after some time this stops dead.

I've tried ad-aware and I am running spybot and found nothing yet.

I've tried using Spy from the C++ SDK to see where the mouse messages are coming from (which window using process explorer) but the tool shows you the messages in the window receiving them, it does not show you which EXE is axctually generating them, which is a shame.

Any advice would be very gratefully receicved. Samsung tech support said reinstall the driver, then reinstall windows, then if it is still a prolem they will look at it . I'm not keen to reinstall everything since everything else is fine.... I found one other user who had this problem, who said it went away by itself.

Any advice would be gratefully received. I've started by turning off anything I can and by looking at running processes and services. Nothing there that I can see, but maybe there is and I can't see it . . .

Hello a few questions and suggestions as this is weird.

Is it an optical mouse
Is it a cheap optical mouse
Do you have a mouse pad
Have you tried another USB port
Have you cleaned it
Why didn't you uninstall from Control Panel
Fed it cheese, couldn't resist
Does the mouse sit on a vibrating surface, eg speakers, a fan, or is a wireless phone nearby
Is this the mouse that came with the lappy
What Antivirus do you have
The first thing we need to rule out is malware.
And tho not til later perhaps, you can do a repair install,not a Full

Here are the answers to the questions: (and yes I agree this is most weird indeed)

Q: Is it an optical mouse?
A: I have disabled the on-board pointing joystick and this model laptop has no touchpad. At the moment I use a USB plug-in mouse (optical) but because the problem happens even if the mouse is unplugged, I suspect it ain't the mouse hardware itself.

Q Is it a cheap mouse?
A: Is it a Microsoft (non-cheap) mouse but see above - suspect strongly not the mouse hardware itself.

Q:Do you have a mouse pad
A: No, problem happens across different mouse surfaces and different desks - A4 paper, tabletop, sofa etc.

Q: Have you tried another USB port?
A: Interesting one, no I have not, but since the same thing happens with the built-in (non-USB) joystick and because it happens witht he nouse unplugged ... probably not an issue.

Q: Have you cleaned it?
A: No but it's optical + diferent mice same prob etc.

Q: Why didn't you uninstall from Control Panel
A: Ok a quick summary is in order here:

At first I was using the built-in pointing stick/joystick mouse (this is one of those little stubs that pokes out of the keyboard) this is built-in to the laptop. I suspected driver problems so tried to uninstall by deleting the mouse in device manager. Usually when I delete things in device manager, the disappear (select, hit del key and it's gone). But for some reason the mouse did not. The icon stayed there even if you delete it over and over. Made me susoect something fishy.
Also, if I plug in the USB mouse, it appears correctly in device manager. I can delete it and the the PnP detects it and reinstalls if it is plugged in again.
And finally, the USB mouse (as shown in device manager) has an option if you right-click it, to disable. The other (mouse you can't delete) does not have a disable option on the pop-up properties list.

So I weeded the pointing stick/joystick mouse out of the registry by removing every key that says "ATI Pointing device" out of the registry. This worked, the pointing stick mouse no longer works at all. Once this is all over, I can reinstall the dirvers. To simplify things, I thought I'd concentrate on the USB mouse, since this is behaving ok in device manager. (Although as above, problem now appears to be not hardware related.)

Q: Fed it cheese?
A: Prefers Stilton to Red Leicester

Q: Does the mouse sit on a vibrating surface, eg speakers, a fan, or is a wireless phone nearby
A: No vibration or speakers. But maybe you have something here! Could this be a wireless issue? We have a lot of wireless stuff -
- 2x wireless home phones
- bluetooth mobiles
- wireless print server
- separate wireless printer as well
- wireless router
- 2x bluetooth PS3 controllers
(It's surprising I haven't been fried overnight ;-)

Could that lot be interfering somehow? BUT maybe not because all of this was not a problem before - well actually the wireless print server and wireless printer did arrive at about the time it went wrong. I will have to test this by sitting next to the wireless print server and pinter and then powering them off once the problem starts, then seeing if this stops it.

Q:Is this the mouse that came with the lappy
A: The built-in keyboard one came with it but this is now disabled.

Q: What Antivirus do you have
A: Nortons AV but it was free trial and is now out of date by a few months. I better get that subsription in. Had Macaffe on there as well but I think this has been removed, I must check.

Q: The first thing we need to rule out is malware.
And tho not till later perhaps, you can do a repair install, not a Full
A: I'm keen to do that - I have a CD for recovery, I have not tried it yet because I'm worried it might re-format everything, but I should check this out.

Oh and very important, thank you very much for your time and advice so far. This is much appreciated, you do great work here.

Hi bad mouse,sorry didn't get back sooner.
I honestly don't have a real answer. but feel those are the likely suspects. Probably the cheese
Electrical interference,malware, or a repair not full install maybe what's left.
I can move this to the Hardware forum to see if the BC Advisors have a shot. If you want. Let me know.

You should try one of the free Antivirus here ,before you but one.
Freeware Replacements For Common Commercial Apps

Also a repair install will not erase your files, tho you will have to redo all updates.
The best explanation and instructions I know are here.
Michael Stevens MS-MVP

(delays no problem, your time is appreciated!)

I suspect not hardware because I'm now using a known good mouse - the mouse works fine on another laptop. I think it is software. How do I go about getting malware advice / help? Should I read the "before you post " and then post a hijack this log?

As a first step I will subscribe to and update my antivirus. I had a free trial and now it has expired.

I have tried ad-aware and sybot (latest).
If the problem remains, (after AV update) what should I do next?

OK first AdAware and Spybot are not antivirus they are antispyware apps. Very good apps and you should keep them,update weekly and before scans. just want to be certain you understand that. They scan for different things, so you will need 1 A/V, several A/S and while we are at it 1 software firewall.

I suggest you try either the AVG or Avira free A/V and install the Superantispyware (free version,to keep) then run the scans. See Freeware link above.
As you will need to run some scans before posting the log. Let us know the scan results.

Hi There,

I downloaded and installed AVG. The scan went through a ton of files and then the laptop battery died at the last minute, but luckily went into hibernate so I could carry on with mains power later.

It found only some tracking cookies (17 of them), but here is the log anyway:

---------------------------------------------------------
AVG Anti-Spyware - Scan Report
---------------------------------------------------------

+ Created at: 08:14:01 28/11/2007

+ Scan result:

C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Desktop\Kill2Me.exe -> Adware.LookMe : Ignored.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@2o7[1].txt -> TrackingCookie.2o7 : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@advertising[2].txt -> TrackingCookie.Advertising : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@atdmt[2].txt -> TrackingCookie.Atdmt : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@ads.guardian.co[1].txt -> TrackingCookie.Co : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@com[1].txt -> TrackingCookie.Com : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\Happy Bunny\Cookies\happy_bunny@doubleclick[1].txt -> TrackingCookie.Doubleclick : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@search.live[1].txt -> TrackingCookie.Live : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@ssl-hints.netflame[2].txt -> TrackingCookie.Netflame : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@overture[2].txt -> TrackingCookie.Overture : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@perf.overture[1].txt -> TrackingCookie.Overture : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@realmedia[1].txt -> TrackingCookie.Realmedia : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@revsci[2].txt -> TrackingCookie.Revsci : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@bs.serving-sys[1].txt -> TrackingCookie.Serving-sys : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@serving-sys[2].txt -> TrackingCookie.Serving-sys : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@adopt.specificclick[1].txt -> TrackingCookie.Specificclick : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@tribalfusion[2].txt -> TrackingCookie.Tribalfusion : Cleaned.
C:\Documents and Settings\dm\Cookies\dm@m.webtrends[2].txt -> TrackingCookie.Webtrends : Cleaned.


::Report end

In the meantime I am going to try and turn off as many things as I can, especially the system tray stuff, so the system is relatively clear and we don't have to wade though unnecessary software to find the problem.

The AVG report does look a bit thin. Let me know if I should run it a different way, or what you recommend next, thanks.

Forgot to add, I'm running Sunbelt Kerio software firewall.

I've put Wireshark into my startup to see if I have anything sending out network comms of any kind that I don't know about - I can't be sure that I get everything from the start because it still takes a while to configure and start it, but so far I caught some comms going to one dodgy ip but this turned out to be one of Samsung's, I think it is the Samsung automatic updates service. (My laptop is a Samsung and has some drivers etc.).

OK that looks good. Two things did you run the scan from safe mode? Also run a scan with SUPERAntispyware from that list.

(sorry for the delay in replying)
I did not run in safe mode, I'll do that and post the results.

HI there, I set the AVG scan going in safe mode. It came up clean, here are the resulkts:

General properties
Report name Complete Test
Start time 11/30/2007 11:52:31 PM
End time 12/1/2007 3:09:48 AM (total: 3:17:15.8 hrs)
Launch method Scanning launched manually
Scanning result No threats found
Report status Scanning completed successfully

Object summary
Scanned 230937
Threats Found 0
Cleaned 0
Moved to vault 0
Deleted 0
Errors 0


then I downloaded and ran superantispyware from www.superantispyware.com . It found 25 tracking/adware cookies, but nothing else.

What should I do next?

Thanks again for your help with this.

Ok so far. How is the mouse thingy going? Back to normal.
Can you also look in the Super scan for LookMe and kill2me
Right click on the SUper icon in system tray.
Select Scan
Select Manage Quarantine
Open the last log created, Click any (+) signs to expand
See if it entered either or both those items.

thanks

I checked the log as you requested but no joy; here is a screenshot: (just adware tracking cookies)

Ok it all looks good. I wonder if you remeber ever running tools to remove Look 2 Me virus. The tool was Kill2ME.
Any way since Super didn't kick that last adware LookMe (no #2) You can do one more thing. But I want to know if the PC is OK and you didn't say if the Mouse is OK now.