[comp.sys.mac.misc] Shaky Mouse

rsvp@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (R. Scott V. Paterson) (04/25/91)

My mouse has suddenly become rather shaky.  I notice when I track
downward, my mouse will jump up about 1/4" at irregular intervals.
Anyone seen such behaviour?
-scott

rsvp@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (R. Scott V. Paterson) (04/25/91)

rsvp@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (R. Scott V. Paterson) writes:


>My mouse has suddenly become rather shaky.  I notice when I track
>downward, my mouse will jump up about 1/4" at irregular intervals.
>Anyone seen such behaviour?
>-scott

I've received a lot of mail indicating that I should take the ball out
of the mouse and give the inside a good cleaning.  That was what I also
suspected at first and should have mentioned.  The inside of the mouse
is squeaky (heh) clean.  Everything moves smoothly inside the mouse
but on the screen, the cursor jumps every so often.  Someone mentioned
that some mice (starting with serial AB...) were bad.  Anyone had a mouse
go bad due to something other than dirt?

Thanks for all the help so far,

-Scott

weiss@watson.seas.ucla.edu (Michael Weiss) (04/26/91)

In article <1991Apr24.230313.18807@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> rsvp@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (R. Scott V. Paterson) writes:
>My mouse has suddenly become rather shaky.  I notice when I track
>downward, my mouse will jump up about 1/4" at irregular intervals.

Sounds to me like one of two possibilities:
   1)  You've got dirt on the rollers
       Take out the mouse ball and clean off the crud from the little
       rollers inside the mouse.  You'd be surprised how much mouse
       movement improves after that.
   2)  Bad contacts/sensors
       This one is a bit tougher.  If you're no longer under warranty and
       want to risk it, you can unscrew the case on the mouse, and look
       around inside.  Sometimes dust/dirt gets into the toothed wheel of
       the optically-driven mouse, or in the metal wheel of the contact-
       driven mouse.  You can clean it with some sort of REALLY small
       tool.
Hope this helps.

jfr@locus.com (Jon Rosen) (04/26/91)

In article <1991Apr24.230313.18807@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> rsvp@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (R. Scott V. Paterson) writes:
>
>My mouse has suddenly become rather shaky.  I notice when I track
>downward, my mouse will jump up about 1/4" at irregular intervals.
>Anyone seen such behaviour?
>-scott


If you have a regular ball-type mouse:

Sounds like a dirty mouse (:-)) to me... Have you cleaned the ball and
the rollers lately?  Be careful to really clean off all the gunk on 
the rollers (if you have that type of mouse)... Also, if there is a
steel roller shaft with a line of gray around the middle, make sure
you use alcohol and a Q-tip to remove the line of gray... Some people
think that line of grey is supposed to be on the mouse... it ain't!
Its is the waxy grey buildup from moving it around and around all
the time...
 
If you have an optical mouse (MouseSystems type), you might check the
orientation of your mouse pad... otherwise, you may need a new one...
 
Jon Rosen
=========================================================
"Another birthday?  Well, don't worry about getting old
 until you can't make sense out of the simplest things...
 ... isn't it?" -- from my favorite 40th birthday card
=========================================================

pejacoby@mmm.serc.3m.com (Paul E. Jacoby) (04/26/91)

In article <1991Apr25.161157.4617@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> rsvp@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (R. Scott V. Paterson) writes:
>rsvp@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (R. Scott V. Paterson) writes:
>>My mouse has suddenly become rather shaky.  I notice when I track
>>downward, my mouse will jump up about 1/4" at irregular intervals.
>>Anyone seen such behaviour?
>
>[notes on cleaning--it is clean]

I have noticed similar odd behavior on occassion from my Turbo Mouse
(Kensington) running under System 6.0.7 on a IIfx. At first I thought it
was because I had forgotten to remove the 6.0.5 'fix' INIT from
Kensington, but pulling that didn't help either.
  At this point, the occurence is intermittent, and I cannot _make_ the
problem happen (or go away) at will.  I talked to Kensington, and they
suggested cleaning (mine is clean too), or possibly a hardware problem.
They had heard of no problems on the IIfx w/6.0.7.

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