What might be wrong with my USB Mouse?

Avoriaz

Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop running Windows XP. I normally use a wireless Microsoft USB mouse. The transmitter attaches to a USB port with a trailing cable. A few days ago I tripped over the cable, pulling it rather violently out of the USB port. Now, every time I plug it back in it causes a power surge on the USB port. Fair enough, I have presumably knackered it.

The USB port looks undamaged and works fine on other devices so I don’t think that has been damaged.

I will buy a new wireless mouse but in the meantime I am using an old Mercury wired USB mouse.

I plugged that in, XP recognised it and installed it as normal and it worked fine.

However, every few minutes it stops working. It will only start working again if I remove the cable and reinsert it.

I have removed and reinstalled the mouse driver but that makes no difference.

I have removed and reinstalled the USB port controllers and drivers and that makes no difference.

It just works for a few minutes and then doesn’t work.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Banacek

Do you have a different usb port you can try it in?

cowbutt

I'd imagine the cable of the old Microsoft mouse has probably suffered some internal damage and the ground and power lines are shorting, hence the surge.

However, my guess would be that the USB port in your computer has probably developed a loose connection to the PCB. Probably prohibitively expensive to fix unless you know someone skilled with a soldering iron.