[SOLVED] Mouse cursor randomly freezing momentarily... again?

[julian_lj]

Hi all!

I'm slightly embarrassed to bring this back, and I'm not so sure how you're supposed to do this on this forum - apologies if I'm doing this the wrong way, and please let me know if there's a better way to do this.

So I made a post about ten days ago about a freezing problem with my mouse cursor:

[SOLVED] - Mouse cursor randomly freezing momentarily?

Hi all! Recently, I have been experiencing random mouse cursor freezes on Windows 10, and despite various troubleshooting attempts, I have been unable to resolve this issue. I'm using a HyperX Pulsefire Haste wired mouse on my setup. At seemingly random intervals, the mouse cursor will...

forums.tomshardware.com

The summary of the previous post is: I was having intermittent freezing issues with my mouse cursor, and a few kind users here helped suggest that I update my BIOS firmware, which was about 3 years behind the newest release. This fix appeared to have worked at the time - the problem immediately disappeared, and after days completely free of any mouse issues, I was convinced the problem had indeed been solved.

Alas, I may have celebrated a little too early as a few days ago my mouse freezing issue came back - slowly at first, with just one or two momentary freezes per session. Then the frequency started picking up, the terminal freezes came back, and now it's back to how it was ten days ago - the only saving grace is that the freezes aren't quite as frequent as before. The circumstances remain the same; full details can be found in my linked previous post.

I've tried the same troubleshooting methods as before, and none of them have helped once again. I'm at my wit's end with this, so if anyone has any idea how to tackle this issue, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Lutfij]

This could very well be an issue with the OS if the BIOS update had fixed the issue prior to this thread's creation. In fact, I'm wagering that the issue cropped up after an OS update? If not, maybe try and clear the CMOS(be wary that this will remove all settings from the BIOS) so it's a good idea to have them down on a sheet of paper in case you forget what they are.

 

[julian_lj]

This could very well be an issue with the OS if the BIOS update had fixed the issue prior to this thread's creation. In fact, I'm wagering that the issue cropped up after an OS update? If not, maybe try and clear the CMOS(be wary that this will remove all settings from the BIOS) so it's a good idea to have them down on a sheet of paper in case you forget what they are.

I haven't had an OS update since I updated the BIOS - nothing major has happened with my rig ever since, which is why I find it strange that this problem seems to just come back without any visible cause. I'll have a look at clearing the CMOS and report back with any updates.

 

[julian_lj]

This could very well be an issue with the OS if the BIOS update had fixed the issue prior to this thread's creation. In fact, I'm wagering that the issue cropped up after an OS update? If not, maybe try and clear the CMOS(be wary that this will remove all settings from the BIOS) so it's a good idea to have them down on a sheet of paper in case you forget what they are.

Apologies for the late update, been a little busy the past few days!

I have cleared the CMOS on my motherboard by unplugging my PC and removing the battery for a few minutes, but the problem still persists.

 

[Ralston18]

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer.

Either one or both tools may be capturing some error code, warning, or even an informational event just before or at the time of the mouse freezes.

Reliability History is easy to use and understand. The timeline format can reveal patterns.

Event Viewer takes more time and effort.

To help:

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3128616/windows-event-viewer.html

See what you can find.

If necessary, expand the Reliability History window and take some screenshots showing the results.

You can post the screenshots here via imgur (www.imgur.com).

 

[julian_lj]

Look in Reliability History and Event Viewer.

Either one or both tools may be capturing some error code, warning, or even an informational event just before or at the time of the mouse freezes.

Reliability History is easy to use and understand. The timeline format can reveal patterns.

Event Viewer takes more time and effort.

To help:

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3128616/windows-event-viewer.html

See what you can find.

If necessary, expand the Reliability History window and take some screenshots showing the results.

You can post the screenshots here via imgur (www.imgur.com).

Hi Ralston, thanks for the tip!

These are my Reliability History logs for the past 2 weeks.

https://imgur.com/a/dKv5baC

View: https://imgur.com/a/dKv5baC


Before recording these screenshots, I used my system as normal until a terminal freeze occurred in order to see if it or any of the minor freezes would get recorded in either Reliability History or Event Viewer. Seems like none of them did.

The only related process to my mouse seems to be NGenuity, the peripheral software for my HyperX devices. I think the activity recorded is just me mucking about with it (uninstalling/reinstalling, changing settings) to see if it would help my problem. NGenuity is infamous for being glitchy and generally bad, but I don't think it's related to my issue since the problem persists without the software installed on my system.

On top of the information in my previous post, I'd also like to add two additional observations I have since made:

• The freezing seems more likely to occur if I perform larger/faster swiping movements with my mouse. One night when I was gaming, I was pretty tired and didn't feel like moving my hand as much as I normally do - so I turned up my in-game mouse sensitivity so I could play with smaller movements. During this session, I noticed that the mouse freezes happened noticeably less frequently than usual.
• Sometimes, right after a freeze with the USB disconnect prompt sound occurs, I've noticed that my framerate drops significantly for about a second or so before recovering immediately. It happens in maybe half of all my freezes.

The swiping observation made me think that perhaps it really is a hardware issue with my mouse, but then the framerate drops seem more indicative of a software issue. I've never had an issue this strange before, I'm really confused 🙁

 

[Ralston18]

Black Ops appears to be having problems as well.

Reinstall both - first Black Ops and go without NGenuity for awhile.

Detemine if performance improves or changes in some other way. Watch the error codes etc. via Reliability History.

Then, if desired/required, reinstall NGenuity. Again watch the erors.

 

[julian_lj]

Thanks everyone for the help and suggestions - just thought I'd give a last update.

The current status of my issue: it's kind of resolved. Not really, but kind of. And I don't really know how.

After two weeks of getting nowhere I eventually grew tired of troubleshooting this issue and reset my PC. Yes, it's generally a last resort method for troubleshooting, but I'd felt that I'd exhausted just about every idea I could think of - and given that I had no vital files on system and one or two other technical issues I was concurrently dealing with - I decided to just try an OS reset.

It still didn't resolve the issue - the freezes quickly came back in full force shortly after resetting.

At that point I had concluded that it was a hardware issue with my mouse when I had another suggestion - it might be a device driver issue. After doing some research, it seems that other users were having issues with HyperX's latest Pulsefire Haste drivers; namely DPI deviation, but at least one user mentioned experiencing a similar problem to mine after a driver update.

HyperX doesn't provide older driver versions on their website, but I did manage to find one Reddit post where they provided a user upon request with a slightly older driver. I downloaded the installation package and ran it, but it wouldn't detect my device no matter what. I then downloaded and re-installed the latest driver version (which I already had) to verify that it was just the older version's install package not working.

And from there my current situation stands. It's been a good couple of days after re-installing the latest driver version - the mouse freezes still occur, but somehow much less frequently now. It now occasionally shows up as a small fit of a couple quick freezes from time to time - but beyond that it's largely dissipated now, and most importantly - terminal freezes are completely gone and freezes almost never occur in-game anymore.

I'm really confused as I didn't really do much, and the way that the issue is not completely gone but no longer shows up during the bulk of my gameplay is perplexing, but I guess I'll just consider the matter... kind of resolved for now.

Thanks again for all the help that everyone has provided me. I won't be actively pursuing this matter anymore now that it's calmed down enough for me to have a smooth experience again, but if anyone has any more ideas or input, please feel free to let me know. Thanks all for your help!