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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Cursor jumping and freezing

light100 - Feb 15, 2007 - 9:26 am

I'm working on a G4, system 10.3.9.

I have a problem with an erratic cursor. It jumps and often freezes no matter what program I'm using.

Thinking it might be a system problem, I ran Disc Utility, defragmented, installed more memory, and, finally, reinstalled my system.

It still jumps.

I tried using the mouse from my G5 but it won't work on a G4.

What could it be? Do you think the mouse is bad?

Thanks for any help you can give.

ishan - Feb 15, 2007 - 9:53 pm

Is it an Apple-branded mouse? Wired or wireless? If third party, have you tried to upgrade the software or alternatively, uninstall it? The kind of behavior you describe is most typically associated with wireless mice, where the mouse is not communicating properly with the USB-attached dongle. Have you tried a different USB port? Is the mouse connected directly to your G4 or via a powered or unpowered USB hub? Try connecting it directly to an USB port, disconnect all other peripherals except your keyboard and see what happens. I doubt this is all that complicated, a little tinkering shoud fix it.

HTH and please let us know what happens. Thanks.

light100 - Feb 16, 2007 - 11:45 am

Thank you for your quick response. I tried, as you suggested, changing the mouse's USB port to no avail.

In the meantime, I happened to cancel my Vonage internet phone service (nothing to do with this problem). I removed the Vonage modem from the internet chain, took out the modem's Firewire cable from the computer and hooked up the Verizon modem's Firewire cable to the computer and guess what happened? You guessed it—the mouse now works beautifully.

So what you suggested—disconnecting all the peripherals was the thing to do. So do you think the Vonage Firewire cable or modem was the culprit?

Thanks again.
Ann-Marie