# HELP! Mouse & Keyboard randomly stop working



## jackieck (Dec 15, 2011)

Help! I have TRIED to solve this myself, but now I'm considering giving up and getting a new computer. I thought I'd try my luck here first. I will give as much information as possible, so PLEASE bear with me...

Starting about a month ago, my wireless mouse and keyboard would randomly stop working. They won't start working again until I hard restart the computer, and then everything's just hunky dory until it decides to happen again. Unplugging and replugging them in doesn't help. My mouse is PS/2, and my keyboard is USB, but I am using a PS/2 adapter with it. Not sure why; I guess I wanted to keep everything in the same area. I have however tried hooking up my keyboard via USB, and it still happened.

One time after they stopped working, I tried to plug my camera in via USB, and it didn't work either. I haven't tried all of my USB ports, but I suspect none of them work when this happens.


Things I have tried:

In my first search for a solution, I saw that my graphics driver could be the issue. So I updated that (it did indeed need updating). That didn't work. Perhaps I should note that when I leave my computer but keep it on, I turn off my monitor. When I turn it back on (let's say an hour later), the screen saver is frozen and so are my mouse and keyboard. That's why I thought maybe it was the graphics driver, but I guess not. That driver, by the way, is "Intel(R) Extreme Graphics." Of course, the mouse/keyboard problem doesn't just happen after the screen saver is on. Most of the time, it's while I'm using my computer. My mouse will just stop working mid-stride.

Went to "USB controllers" in the device manager. All four of my "USB Root Hubs" had the "allow computer to turn off this device to save power" option check-marked, so I unchecked them. That didn't work.

I was seeing some serious CPU spiking, and I saw that MRT.exe was the culprit. So I suspected that maybe high CPU usage might be my whole problem, since I've heard that that can mess with your mouse and keyboard. While I was looking into that, I kept my Task Manager handy so I could see when it spiked again. While everything was perfectly calm, it happened again, so this problem doesn't appear to have anything to do with CPU usage.

I cleaned up my startup files. I even found a possible virus (At1, At2, At3, and At4) in my Windows/Tasks folder. I deleted all of those, and it still happened after that.


I should note that over a year ago, my USB port in the front of my computer just completely died.

This computer has to be about 7 years old. It has an Intel Celeron processor, with a speed of 2.93 GHz and 2 gigs of ram.

While looking at things in BIOS (don't worry; I didn't fiddle around with anything), I noticed my CPU temperature was 65, and my system temperature was 49. I have no idea if that's causing my problem or not.

Oh, and of course, my batteries are just fine. When my issue happens, the lights on my wireless "receiver" are off, indicating that it isn't registering that it's plugged in.


This problem is DRIVING ME CRAZY. Seriously, I have work to do on this computer, and if I'm writing something, this could happen, and I'd have to hard turn off my computer, so I'd lose everything. And when I say this happens randomly, I mean it. Sometimes, I'll get a good 2 hours without it happening, and sometimes I only get 10 minutes. It can happen when I have 6 Chrome tabs up or when all I'm doing is using Word. HELP!!


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Have you tried a different keyboard & mouse on your PC or tried your keyboard & mouse on another PC?
What are we working with?
PC Specs?
Pre-Built Brand & Model Number
Custom Built-Brand & Model of Mobo-CPU-RAM-Graphics-PSU


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## jackieck (Dec 15, 2011)

My PC is an HP Pavilion a705w; only thing I ever changed was adding some RAM, and that was quite a while ago.

I have tried a wired USB mouse, and it worked until the problem decided to happen again. No, I haven't tried my keyboard and mouse on a different computer because I'm pretty much positive that those aren't the problem.

Here's a VERY important update:
Yesterday, the problem happened while I was about to type into a field. I noticed that the cursor wasn't blinking anymore. I can't believe I never considered it before...apparently my WHOLE COMPUTER is freezing! Once I realized that, I thought I should get rid of some old programs to clean up my computer a little bit, and then maybe I can defragment. I have a feeling that's not the problem though...


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## jackieck (Dec 15, 2011)

Whoa...here's an annoying update:
My daughter was playing a new CD-ROM game. It's a very simple game (she's 3), and I was right there next to her. She didn't even click anything, and the screen suddenly went black, and the computer restarted itself! This happened twice; the first time we got in about 10 minutes of play, and the second time was only about 3.


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## jackieck (Dec 15, 2011)

Ok, I noticed something else. After it froze this last time, I noticed the lights on the keyboard/mouse receiver were still on. Then I unplugged and replugged them back in, and one of the lights came back on. I tried to reconnect the mouse and keyboard to it, but it didn't work. Then I unplugged and replugged again, and this time no lights came on. Everything on the computer was frozen this whole time, too.

I swear, if I had $400 layin around, I would totally get myself a new computer.


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## Plaztikman (Sep 25, 2011)

Well I had the same problem only mine was just the keyboard, mine seemed to happen when it was overheating due to 4.5ghz overclock, I have solved the overheating issue and it seems fine now, you will tend to notice it more when you using CPU demanding program's such as games and not so much when the computer is idle, download some CPU temperature software, I use Core Temp as I find this accurate and post your idle temperatures, then we will take it further from there...


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

First step is to disable Auto Restart and possibly view any Error Codes.


Prevent Automatic Restart after BSOD.In Windows XP.

Click on Start and then on Control Panel.
Control Panel double click to open System.
System Properties window click on the Advanced tab.
In the section labeled ‘Startup and Recovery’, click on the Settings button.
In the section labeled ‘System failure’, remove the checkmark from ‘Automatically restart’.
Click OK, OK to exit.

Vista & 7

Click on Start and then on Control Panel.
In the Control Panel double click to open System.
In the left panel under ‘Tasks’ click on Advanced system settings.
In the section labeled ‘Startup and Recovery’, click on the Settings button.
In the section labeled ‘System failure, remove the checkmark from ‘Automatically restart’.
Click Ok, OK to exit.


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## jackieck (Dec 15, 2011)

I had looked at the event viewer yesterday, because I had made note of the exact time that one of the freeze-ups happened. There was nothing logged in there even close to that time. But then I checked the log again just now, and there are a TON of errors (the same one), but the freeze hasn't happened for a couple hours. So that's weird. Here's a screenshot of my event viewer (if I can figure out how to put it on here...)


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## jackieck (Dec 15, 2011)

By the way, I did disable auto restart.

I am installing Core Temp now, so we'll see where that goes. However, I should note that I don't really play games on here. Mostly, I just surf the web and shop and stuff. I might have like 7 Chrome tabs opened at once sometimes, and it does freeze on me sometimes when I do that. But sometimes it freezes when all I'm doing is my budget in an OpenOfficeWriter document.


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## jackieck (Dec 15, 2011)

Core Temp didn't work with my computer, but I got a different program that seems to work just fine (HWMonitor). I installed it and brought it up, and then I had to go somewhere, but I just left my computer and monitor on. I think it was probably on for about 20 minutes before it froze, because the clock on my computer was frozen too, so I knew what time it happened. And since I conveniently still had the temperature monitor up, I was able to see what those were when it froze.

The CPU temp was 49, and the system temp was 52. So that was pretty much in idle mode, since I hadn't touched the computer in about 20 minutes, and the only program running was the HWMonitor.

Here's a note on the freezes that have happened this afternoon:

I turned my computer on around 1:30pm. All those errors in my event viewer started happening around 3pm. Then it froze at 3:51pm. There was no warning, as usual. The computer seemed to be functioning like it should. I immediately turned it back on, which is noteworthy, since my computer didn't have a chance to cool down. The it froze at 4:32pm, which is when I was able to see those temperatures in HWMonitor.


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## jackieck (Dec 15, 2011)

Here's why I don't think this has to do with temperature:

I turned my computer on for the first time today at 9:06 this morning. I only had one Chrome tab open (I don't think it even had any flash on that website), and my PC froze at 9:18. After restarting, I checked the CPU temp, and it was 41. I used the program instead of BIOS (I missed the chance to go into BIOS), but I don't think HWMonitor is inaccurate, since the computer was only on for 12 minutes, and it didn't feel hot.


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