Mouse stuttering, occasional system hangs

[blibba]

Ok, so a few weeks ago my accommodation block at uni switched to wireless-only networking. I've had to start using a shitty old USB wireless dongle that I have, and since doing so I've been running into a couple of problems. The timing may or may not be a coincidence.

• Every couple of days or so the system hangs. Music keeps playing but the mouse and keyboard do nothing, even when unplugged and plugged back in. The system clock does not advance. The event manager reveals nothing other than the unexpected shutdown.
• Frequently cursor movement becomes stuttery. This can be fixed by unplugging the mouse and plugging it back in again, or sometimes by banging the mouse on the table.

My mouse is a Steelseries Ikari Optical, and my crap old USB wireless device is an Edimax EW-7318USg. I've tried various releases of the USB wireless driver to no avail. I've been running my system at stock since the problem started, so as to rule out my overclock as a possible cause. Other system specs are listed as "the one under the desk" in my system specs.

Any ideas?

 

[Kaynar]

Start by complaining to the IT that you have a desktop without wireless and you cannot afford a proper wireless card
I feel your pain, last year I was in univ accomodation and the internet was SHIT, couldnt even play WoW or dota or anything without special programs and all the time the connection was dropping...

As for your issue... I guess it is a problem of your motherboard's USB system that bugs for the typical random reason! It would be cool if you could switch to PCIe card or another appropriate device. Internet through USB causes system issues in many many cases (Personal experience with that).

 

[blibba]

Start by complaining to the IT that you have a desktop without wireless and you cannot afford a proper wireless card
I feel your pain, last year I was in univ accomodation and the internet was SHIT, couldnt even play WoW or dota or anything without special programs and all the time the connection was dropping...

As for your issue... I guess it is a problem of your motherboard's USB system that bugs for the typical random reason! It would be cool if you could switch to PCIe card or another appropriate device. Internet through USB causes system issues in many many cases (Personal experience with that).

Thanks for the reply.

I am slightly wary of blaming the USB wireless, because I was using it at a friend's house for a couple of days (with the same PC) just before I came back to uni, and I didn't have any issues. Then the first few days at uni this term, using wired internet, were also fine. Then I start using wireless here and I get these problems. Could be a coincidence.

I don't really want to buy a new wireless card anyway as I finish uni for good in 6 weeks and probably won't need one thereafter.

 

[Kaynar]

ah if you finish in just 6 weeks then yeah live with it. In terms of the USB problem, my suspicion is that its the protocol used to communicate (which is dictated by the host) that is too "heavy" or problematic somehow. In my uni accomodation they were using an awful dial-up system that I had to launch after starting up my PC to connect to their server so that they give me internet... u get the picture... super old stuff i remember using this window in WinXP for PSTN in 1995~

 

[Mussels]

just as a heads up, i had similar issues that lasted about 2 months before my OCZ vertex II SSD died. the system would 'freeze' but the mouse cursor would still work, recovering about one time in three. eventually it lead to BSOD's and the death of the drive.


might not be your problem, but something to look at.

 

[blibba]

just as a heads up, i had similar issues that lasted about 2 months before my OCZ vertex II SSD died. the system would 'freeze' but the mouse cursor would still work, recovering about one time in three. eventually it lead to BSOD's and the death of the drive.


might not be your problem, but something to look at.

Eugh. Any way I can check this out?

In some ways it does sound different to my issue - I never have hangs in which I can still use the mouse. Either it's just the mouse that doesn't work, or nothing works at all.

 

[Kaynar]

just as a heads up, i had similar issues that lasted about 2 months before my OCZ vertex II SSD died. the system would 'freeze' but the mouse cursor would still work, recovering about one time in three. eventually it lead to BSOD's and the death of the drive.


might not be your problem, but something to look at.

Thats a different issue that usually occurs due to the pagefile being inaccessible or your RAM being problematic because you are way over its specs or haven't given enough voltage for its overclocks.

 

[Mussels]

yes i did mention that it was possibly not his problem, but some of the symptoms sounded similar. its quite rare for some parts of a machine to not work (mouse) while the rest functions. since my symptoms varied, and he has an SSD i thought i'd at least let him know what my symptoms (and final result) were.


now that i've sacrificed a goat to the gods, i have another question:

when your mouse stops working, is unplugging the mouse and replugging it the ONLY way to make it work? does replugging the wifi adaptor also solve the problem?

 

[blibba]

when your mouse stops working, is unplugging the mouse and replugging it the ONLY way to make it work? does replugging the wifi adaptor also solve the problem?

I will try that next time.

To be clear, the mouse does not entirely stop working - it just becomes very laggy, despite low CPU and RAM usage. This is the second issue I described in my original post, and the one that can be fixed by unplugging the mouse.

When the system stops working entirely (hangs), unplugging anything does not fix the problem. This is the first issue I described, and I'm assuming they're related as they started at roughly the same time.

Is there any way in which I can rule out an SSD issue?

 

[Mussels]

to rule out SSD, disconnect it and boot from another drive. thats the only way.

(booting from a linux live CD should also work, but its too different to be a good test)



the reason i asked about hte wifi adaptor, is to see if its the USB port shorting somehow. hell it could even be your PSU failing, and the 5V rail (or 5VSB, depends on the board) powering the USB is going first.

 

[95Viper]

Just some ideas.

You may want to try, if you already have not:
1. Update your MB's bios to the latest firmware.
2. Update your NEC (Renesas) firmware on the MB to the latest firmware.
3. Turn off power management for the usb ports in the device manager and windows advanced power options.
4. Update your NEC (Renesas) drivers to the latest.
5. Make sure all other drivers are updated to recent ones.

In my humble opinion though... I believe it is, probably, the wifi usb dongle or the, usually, poorly written drivers that some little guy, in a dark dank room, that cranks them out on demand of his overlords.

You, may, have large latency spikes due to buffer underruns (could be result of driver/hardware conflicts due to one device waiting for another to finish and not releasing resources as needed by another device/driver) , too. You can use one of the free latency monitors to look at that.
Now it may point to, something like... ndis.sys as the culprit, however, ndis is more than likely the victim of the, say, unfriendly wifi driver, which is probably causing a backup on the highway and delaying traffic.

LatencyMon: http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon
DPC Latency monitor: http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

Disclaimer: updating (flashing) firmware has a possibility of failure, so you do so at your own risk.

 

[remixedcat]

Can you get a PCI-E WLAN card? There are some TP-Link ones for cheap (there, mussels!!) on Newegg that might work.

 

[blibba]

Just some ideas.

You may want to try, if you already have not:
1. Update your MB's bios to the latest firmware.
2. Update your NEC (Renesas) firmware on the MB to the latest firmware.
3. Turn off power management for the usb ports in the device manager and windows advanced power options.
4. Update your NEC (Renesas) drivers to the latest.
5. Make sure all other drivers are updated to recent ones.

In my humble opinion though... I believe it is, probably, the wifi usb dongle or the, usually, poorly written drivers that some little guy, in a dark dank room, that cranks them out on demand of his overlords.

You, may, have large latency spikes due to buffer underruns (could be result of driver/hardware conflicts due to one device waiting for another to finish and not releasing resources as needed by another device/driver) , too. You can use one of the free latency monitors to look at that.
Now it may point to, something like... ndis.sys as the culprit, however, ndis is more than likely the victim of the, say, unfriendly wifi driver, which is probably causing a backup on the highway and delaying traffic.

LatencyMon: http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon
DPC Latency monitor: http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

Disclaimer: updating (flashing) firmware has a possibility of failure, so you do so at your own risk.

I've already tried most of that, but I'll look into the rest. I actually haven't had either problem occur in some 24 hours now, so I'm hoping that the good wallop I gave the mouse yesterday might have fixed it :/

Can you get a PCI-E WLAN card? There are some TP-Link ones for cheap (there, mussels!!) on Newegg that might work.

I don't really want to buy a new wireless card anyway as I finish uni for good in 6 weeks and probably won't need one thereafter.

 

[blibba]

Okay, so although the mouse stuttering seems to be miraculously fixed, for the first time in a while, I had a system hang this morning. Argh.