Mouse cursor displays the wrong icon

My cursor still changes based on the context, like hovering over a link or in a text field, but displays the wrong icon. After focusing a text field, the cursor is a reggular arrow in the text editor and turns to the text staff outside of it when it should be an arrow.

I just did a fresh install of 10.6.8 on a crucial m4 - ct256m4ssd

I FOUND THAT RESIZING THE MOUSE CURSOR IN THE UNIVERSAL ACCESSS PREFERENCES temporarily restores the cursor to a size-adjusted mouse, until I do something like click in a text field.