Desktop Icons Unresponsive to Mouse

[arbytech]

I have a user running XP Pro SP1 and at least two or three times a day when clicking, double clicking or right clicking on an icon on the desktop nothing happens. You can tab through the icons with the keyboard but the mouse clicks don't work. The mouse moves the cursor fine and clicks work in open windows.
NAV is up to date and nothing is found. Spy-Bot is the same.
Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

 

[franklin97355]

Have you tried a different mouse?

 

[linney]

Some general things to try.

See if System Restore will get you back to a restore point before your problem with the Mouse.

Try Safe Mode (Do you have this problem in Safe Mode?).

Run the System File Checker program from the Run Box by typing.....Sfc /Scannow in it and have your XP CD handy.

You could try uninstalling the driver or updating it via Device Manager. Any uninstall will cause the Mouse to be rediscovered by Windows at next restart.

 

[SGTRawlins]

How do you currently resolve the situation? i am guessing that you just re-boot the system.

Have you checked taks manager for apps and processes that have stopped responding or crashed, my guess is that one of these is going tits-up.

You may want to log the time that the issue begin and check your system event logs.

Let me know how you get on.

One more point, is thier any consistancy to the time that the issue occurs, is in a particular hour of the day? or is it when you open or close a particular application?

 

[arbytech]

Thanks for the input everybody. To answer a few questions:

It's an IBM laptop with the trackpoint/glide pad as a mouse.

The problem starts when he tries to delete a word doc on the desktop.

Yes rebooting fixes the problem temporarliy.

I will try some of the suggestions listed above and post any results. I have already used a restore point and updated the trackpoint driver from IBM.

 

[bcastner]

The trackpoint itself is a known point of failure.
It can develop intermittent connection problems to the motherboard.