Worn USB sockets on G3 iMac, why the twiddly mouse cursor?

Question

Level 1

9 points

Worn USB sockets on G3 iMac, why the twiddly mouse cursor?

Ok on my iMac the mouse works great as does the keyboard, but sometimes the mouse gets very twiddly and almost becomes impossible to use for finer selection and picking menus and etc. Sometimes while using it slowly and calmly it will teleport itself to another part of the screen with no rhyme or reason, but the most confounding thing it does is it will spontaneously dump itself into the lower right hand corner of the screen (sadly) which is the corner I use to activate my screen saver. The mouse is new enough I use on it, so can USB sockets get worn out over time? I can really live with this quirk, but if its going to get worse later, I would conversely also like to know what I can do about it.

iMac (CRT) G3 350 mHz, iBook G3 500 mHz, Mac OS X (10.3.x), iMac G3 w/1 GB RAM, Clearwire @786kbps, Panther 10.3.9

Posted on Mar 1, 2008 4:15 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Kenichi Watanabe

Level 8

41,578 points

Mar 1, 2008 9:02 PM in response to MrSteve1337

Check the optical sensor part of the mouse to make sure there is no dust or smudges. Some surfaces, even if they are not reflective, can mess with the mouse's tracking. As a test, try a piece of paper (or a mouse pad if you have one). There made be a defect in the mouse cord. Over time, as it is flexed, the wires can get frayed inside. This is most likely to happen where the cord connects to the mouse body. I don't think it would be the USB socket, but maybe you can test it by connecting something else to it.

Reply