Hi everyone - this is probably and easy one, but as of this morning my mouse scroll ball only lets me scroll UP a page, not down. I tried cleaning with a damp cloth as instructed in the Support section, and tried restarting the computer but no dice. Can anyone advise? thanks!
Use a clean lint-free cloth lightly moistened with water. Wipe the ball and the surrounding area, making sure to rotate the ball itself to ensure complete coverage. If the scrolling feels rough or if the scroll ball isn't scrolling up, down, or side-to-side, hold the mouse upside-down and roll the ball vigorously while cleaning it to help dislodge any particles that may have collected on the internal hardware.
Follow Miriam's always excellent advice. In my own case, rolling the mouse upside down on a microfiber cloth (the kind used for glasses and screens) works
VERY well in restoring the MM to full scrolling. I have not needed to use water, but that should not hurt anything.
I'm getting a little worried. I've rolled, shaken, banged the mouse and ball using various materials. The gunk must really be stuck in there... Another site suggested using some rubbing alcohol. That seems kind of severe...
I have never tried anything liquid (I have not needed to...). I have seen people post that used alcohol, but I have no first hand experience and do not recommend things that I have not tried myself.
Is the mouse less than a year old? If so, the warranty would still apply.
yikes. May be. Maybe I'll drag it into the local genius bar at the mac store and see if they can genius it before I chuck it in the bin.
Thanks for your tips everyone!
Hello! So I went down to the apple store but didn't bring my whole computer so they couldn't diagnose it -- also priced out a new mouse (50 bucks to replace my wired, 60 for a wireless) and thought -- **** it, I'm gonna try again. So I went home and used a Q-tip in alcohol, rubbed it on the ball 5x clockwise, counterclockwise, right, left, up, down. Then I put it on a piece of clean paper and rolled the heck out of it. Now it works. I read on another site that it's the finger grease that reduces the friction of the ball and that's the problem. The clean paper pulls the grease off and helps rough up the ball again. Remember when the mouse is new the roller ball is strangely / intentionally rough.
So that's my experience! Success. Thanks much everyone for your help. If at first you don't succeed....
I had the same problem in that my mouse wouldn't scroll down. I've only had it since just before Christmas '08, too.
Took the advice that the paper would get rid of the grease and it did. All I did was to turn the mouse upside down and rough it up a bit in every direction on a piece of white copier paper and it worked a treat.
Strange though, that the Apple mouse failed because of a bit of use.
