A weird problem involving the interaction between my mice and flash drives started up a few weeks ago and hasn’t gone away.
After several years of no problems, suddenly one day, when I connected one of my two flash drives (different manufacturers), it made the cursor difficult to control with the mouse that connects by wire (it was jumpy; it couldn’t be moved smoothly or with much accuracy, taking a lot of effort to get the cursor to a specific spot. But it could be used to produce a right-click menu). I tried my other flash drive, and there was no problem.
On the other hand, at first the wireless mouse (different manufacturer) experienced the same problem with the first flash drive, but not the second one. Based on that, I concluded that the problem lay with the first drive. But then the wireless mouse also sporadically encountered the jumpiness problems with the second drive. Sometimes it’s ok; sometimes not.
I need two flash drives, so I purchased a new one (made by yet a third manufacturer). I tried it just now. When I connect it, the wired mouse is completely dead (I can’t move the cursor at all; nor does right-clicking work, although I can use the keyboard), and it makes the wireless mouse jumpy, in the same way that the wired mouse acts when the first drive is connected. So, unlike in the case of the first problem, the new flash drive always interferes with the operation of both mice.
During all of this experimentation, I never had both mice connected at the same time; same for the drivers. So this can’t be a case of one driver interfering while I’m trying to use the other one, or of one mouse interfering with the other.
I went into the device manager and uninstalled and reinstalled the mouse drivers, but it made no difference.
Then, after all this horsing around, I realized I had completely forgotten about a third wireless mouse that I use exclusively with my laptop (same brand but different model than the wireless mouse that I use with the desktop). The laptop has the same version Windows as the desktop. Lo and behold, the laptop mouse works just fine with all three drives, not only on the laptop, but with the desktop as well.
So perhaps the culprit is the desktop computer, and all the mice and drive are innocent bystanders, drawn into a virulent controversy that are not of their own making?
Note that I have a service contract with Dell for both computers, but my experience with their service technicians has been unfortunate, because my hearing at my advanced age isn’t the greatest, and I have a hell of a time understanding the Indian accent. Pleasant as I find the accent itself, I just have too many problems understanding too many words that they use, which makes me want to fix this without tech support, if that’s at all possible. (Alternatively, I’m also beginning to worry that the fundamental problem might be that the Rosicrucians or the Illuminati are starting to mess with me again. Just to be mean.)
Can anyone explain what’s going on here and what I can try to do to fix the problem? Better yet, what I can do to actually fix the problem?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
