Mouse problems

D

decoyotis

Registered
Hi,

I recently purchased a nice new iMac G5 and I'm loving it so far. Apart from the problems i'm having with my mouse.

the movement of the cursor on the screen is jerky and unreliable, even though the surface that the mouse is on is smooth. it's as if it's trackball is dirty, but of course it doesn't have one as it's optical;-)

I've ruled out the mouse itself being faulty as i plugged it in to a handy XP PC and it worked beautifully.

Hope someone has a suggestion:-)
 
Make sure that the surface you're using the mouse on isn't too smooth, i.e. like well polished glass. The optical sensor needs some way of picking up movement and if the surface is too smooth, it won't be able to pick up mouse movements and you get jerky cursor movement.
 
If you've got some blue jeans on, a good way to test the mouse's optical sensor is to "use the mouse on your leg." If the mouse works fine this way, it's not the mouse -- it's most likely the surface you're using it on.

I find a good, solid-color, matte mouse pad (like those generic, small, solid blue, fabric-style pads at CompUSA/BestBuy) to be the best with optical mice. Those pads with the plastic covering as well as pads with photos or pictures printed on them don't work well -- printed pictures have very small, repeating patterns in them that confuse optical mice and the plastic-covered pads are too "glossy" for the mouse to work on. Likewise, finished wood desktops with a gloss coat also don't work well. The two big things you want to avoid are reflective surfaces (like plastic or glass) and printed stuff.

Try a few different surfaces that are a solid color (or are not printed, at least), not glossy and have a matte finish. You might also want to check the optical sensor on the bottom isn't clogged with lint or fuzz or anything.
 
Things seem to improve a little on plainer, matt sufaces, but it still doesn't feel quite right. I move my cursor and everything seems normal but when i slow in order to point at something (icon, menu, etc) the mouse seems to slow quite suddenly and i either end up short or overcompensate. it's especially noticable when navigating menus
 
Try a mouse from the 'handy PC' (if it's USB - almost any USB mouse will work) Acceleration could be different, but should always be predictable, anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top