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Level 1

8 points

Mighty Mouse Problem - Jerky And Jumpy

I seem to have developed a problem with my cordless Mighty Mouse in the past few days. It's become really erratic - seems to jump around the screen. When I'm moving the mouse to a certain position on the screen, it will just "jump" way over to one side for no apparent reason.

I cleaned the mouse, changed the batteries, checked all the settings. I made a few changes in the Keyboard and Mouse control panel and saved the changes (just to update the preference file) and then reverted back to the old settings. I've tried a different surface (you'd think that would be the main problem - the surface it's on - but that's not the case). Restarted numerous times. Ran YASU. Nothing changes - it just seems to be really "jerky" and "jumpy" all of a sudden.

Has anyone else had this happen and do you have any suggestions on how I can fix this problem? Is this maybe a defective mouse? I've had the mouse for 3 months now.

Maybe this is a system software problem? I haven't changed anything on my system in a few weeks - no updates or anything at all.

Thanks so much,
Gerard

iMac 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo - 4 GB RAM, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Mar 17, 2009 6:00 PM

101 replies

azpc

Level 1

10 points

Aug 9, 2009 4:47 PM in response to califfo1975

Did 10.58 cure your problems. Unfortunately it did not cure mine.

azpc

Level 1

10 points

Aug 14, 2009 3:27 PM in response to azpc

Does anyone know if 10.6 solves this problem?

Philscbx

Level 2

164 points

Aug 16, 2009 2:02 AM in response to azpc

azpc wrote:
Does anyone know if 10.6 solves this problem?

Finally, Comedy.

azpc

Level 1

10 points

Aug 23, 2009 5:37 AM in response to Philscbx

Well I can unfortunately report that the bluetooth 2.01 update did not solve the jumpy mouse problem for me. Does anyone know if 10.6 solves this really frustrating problem?

jlamb

Level 1

0 points

Aug 28, 2009 1:52 PM in response to azpc

I am having the same problem with 10.6

Aug 28, 2009 2:31 PM in response to azpc

The upgrade to Snow Leopard made matters worse for me! I used to have a smoothly moving mouse, but ever since the upgrade it is super jerky and jumps halfway across screen intermittently. I tried trashing the Bluetooth plist and repairing to no avail. I think I will downgrade back to 10.5.8 since having a useful mouse is a zillion times more important than the new bells and whistles in Snow Leopard. I will report back if the downgrade fixes things just to confirm that it is totally a software issue related to Snow Leopard.

Philscbx

Level 2

164 points

Aug 28, 2009 2:52 PM in response to SkittishBaby

If it was my issue, I think a cool idea would head to Apple Store with your mouse, and pick any machine to see if the problem follows with the mouse.

I may have missed a post or two, but the underside laser is clean?
I blow mine out frequently, and turn upside down with rubbing alcohol
damp on lint free cloth and scrub spin the ball on the cloth in my hand.

This will remove oils that might be messing with sensors.
You don't make honey covered peanut butter toast do Ya? It's my danger zone snack.

Is there a cordless house phone? Try unplugging it

Message was edited by: Philscbx

Aug 30, 2009 9:54 AM in response to SkittishBaby

So here is an update. I rebooted the machine once more and went out to dinner for a few hours. When I got back, the mouse was working fine under SL. So my guess is that it was some external cause and not anything related to the OS upgrade. The mouse has worked fine since Friday night, so I see no need to downgrade the OS back to Leopard.

Sep 3, 2009 6:43 AM in response to Gerard James

I have had the jumpy mouse problem since installing 10.6. I have using a wired mouse on a KVM. It worked perfectly before the upgrade. A reboot will fix it temporarily but ti eventually starts doing it again.

Sep 3, 2009 5:21 PM in response to Gerard James

I've got a 2008 Mac Pro with an Apple Radeon 4870. I had been running with a VGA cable (and Apple adapter) from the DVI port because I was getting an occasional shimmering on certain screen elements with a DVI cable. After upgrading to Snow Leopard, I wanted to see if the shimmering had gone away.

Well, the good news was that it had, the bad news was that the mouse started jerking all over the place. I switched back to the VGA cable, and the jerkiness was gone. Just like that.

If you're using a DVI cable and you've got the jerky mouse, try going to a VGA cable. It made a night and day difference on my setup.

Wiredman

Level 1

0 points

Sep 11, 2009 10:12 AM in response to Doc Savage

I have a Macbook Pro with a 24 in Cinema display, the old style, and after reading Doc Savage's post I decided to do a test. I disconnected the Cinema display and like magic, mu mouse started working, no more jumping around and jerky behavior. I'm running 10.6.1. This has been a problem on and off since 10.5.5. 10.5.8 worked perfectly while 10.5.6 an 7 where bad.

I had to connect and disconnect the external monitor twice to get the mouse to work better.

Philscbx

Level 2

164 points

Sep 11, 2009 5:00 PM in response to Wiredman

There must be fuzzy radio interference going on.
I'd be temped to try blocking with foil in any size (3 ft long sheet to start) to see if it's a shielding issue from cables,
or from display itself.

My wifi for example comes from the house to the garage office from 160 ft distance.
With the laptop on the garage desk, I would randomly loose connection.
So I formed a radar dished shape with foil where laptop lid sits inside the radar tent of foil.

Immediate gain was made. The lid antennas in Macs are not the best.

Sep 11, 2009 7:04 PM in response to jjsanders281

I have been having the jerky mighty mouse problem for some time now also, but have it under reasonable control. Problem started while running Leopard and continues under Snow Leopard 10.6.1. The problem starts every time I communicate with my HP Photosmart 8250 bluetooth printer, either to print, or to do something like check supply levels. There appears to be some sort of bluetooth interference/competition between the printer and mouse; hasn't effected my bluetooth keyboard. After I have finished communicating with the printer, I either quit the print monitor or close the mouse laser porthole to stop the jerky mouse effect. It would be nice if Apple would take these annoyances seriously.

azpc

Level 1

10 points

Sep 17, 2009 6:48 PM in response to jlamb

I can report that 10.61 has greatly improved my mouse jumpiness. However, unfortunately it has not cured it. BUMMER!!!!!

The Bluetooth problem that I seem to be facing is excessive mouse movements when the processor is working on other tasks. Before logging into this forum, I was reading emails when I moved the mouse to click on the delete option. The mouse started moving and then just took off in the same direction overshooting the delete icon.

I am fairly confident that it is not a hardware problem or an interference problem because the mouse works flawlessly with Windows XP SP3.

I wish Apple would get this problem fixed.

cloudns

Level 1

0 points

Sep 19, 2009 3:11 PM in response to Gerard James

My issue happend to be the opposite of Doc Savage's. I've got two monitors hooked up to the mac by dvi-d and a pc hooked up to one of the same monitors using vga. Mind you it took me an hour or so to figure it out! After browsing through a few forums talking about electrical interference and grounding, unplugging my windows wireless mouse, moving cordless and cell phones, switching plugs, it was as simple as switching the source input on the second monitor back to dvi from vga! I thought it was because I hadn't screwed in the vga cable into the cpu or monitor but that didn't alleviate it. Any explanations I am missing out on?!

Mighty Mouse Problem - Jerky And Jumpy