Help!

[Spanky]

I'm having a bizarre problem with my PC and I can't seem to solve it. The mouse seems possesed at times. It may freeze for seconds at a time, or suddenly start racing around the screen and randomly clicking links all by itself. Sometimes I can move it slightly to one side or the other, and the web page will suddenly rocket all the way to the top or bottom. This doesn't only happen when online, either, it happens all the time. Desktop, word document, it makes no difference. I've tried three different mice, one USB and two PS2. I've replaced the drivers. I even re-installed windows from the Recovery partition, no help at all. I know there are no infections or malware on the PC.

I run WinXP, IE7, on an AMD Athlon HP PC.

Any ideas?

[Zenith]

It sounds like you've tried everything I would check. Are these all optical mice? Have you tried a good old ball mouse? Is the surface you're using the mouse on perfectly flat? Bumps and hairs under optical mice can make them do crazy stuff.

[Spanky]

I've tried optical and trackball mice. I've used mouse pads and the plain wooden desk top. It's not a mechanical issue, I'm convinced it's a software issue. I've hacked the registry and removed anything related to a mouse, removed every program I can find related to a mouse, removed and reinstalled the mouse (with each different mouse that I've tried). Nothing helps. I know it's something simple and stupid causing it, I just don't know where to look...

[Spanky]

OK, I inadvertantly fixed it, to my shocking surprise. I removed Norton Security Suite from my system and intalled Mcaffe, for a completely different reason. And somehow, amazingly, the mouse is fixed now. Why this would have any effect on the mouse, I haven't a clue....

[Keke Silly Goose]

what norton were you running? I had a huge problem with the norton system works, i think the 2007 version. the system works just messed up a bunch of programs. been running macafee on the new lap top, first time using it and love it.

[Spanky]

I was also using 2007 Norton. One thing I have noticed with the McAfee, though, it scans a lot slower than the Norton. But otherwise I like it just fine.

[Zenith]

I wouldn't touch Norton Antivirus with a barge pole, how people still buy the product is completely beyond me, it just kills PCs with how much it takes over. With NAT routers/firewalls these days viruses are not nrealy the problem they once were. A nice simple anti-virus program like McAfee AntiVirus Enterprise 8.5i or even AVG will not hog your PC but will protect you. Whenever we take over IT support for a compnay we remove Norton if they are using it as a priority and install McAfee. We have it on probably 2-3000 PCs now and very rarely have problems.