Mouse spontaneously cuts out randomly for at least a second in games in Windows 7

[Nazo]

So a while back I got the Razer Orochi. Less for a portable gaming mouse sort of thing and more because the smaller size and shape is more comfortable to my hand (I've been having troubles with pains in my right hand that I've determined were caused in no small part to having said hand on a mouse all day long every day, lol. I needed a real gaming mouse though, and most smaller mice can't do some of the stuff I need my mouse to do like a custom DPI setting.) I'm not using the Bluetooth support at all and, in fact, don't want the extra weight of having batteries in it (plus my PC lacks Bluetooth, so I'd have to buy a dongle, and this thing already set me back quite enough as it is.) So the issue definitely isn't what one might be inclined to think at first (I can see a wireless connection dropping from time to time perhaps due to interference or whatever, but it's plugged in to the USB directly with no wireless at all.)

First, one bit of oddness. When I first got the mouse I was using Windows XP SP3 and never once had this problem. Ever. I recently "upgraded" to Windows 7 64-bit for various reasons and since then this problem started right away. So the problem is definitely something software-related at some level rather than hardware (in fact, I have two computers, one older one for gaming that still runs on XP SP3 and whenever I use it the mouse doesn't do this on it at all either.)

Just to be clear, basically I'll be playing a game or sometimes even just on the desktop and the mouse just stops responding completely. No clicks, no movement, nothing. It's not like it loses power or anything (the LED on the wheel doesn't go out for instance.) After about a second or so it finally comes back in acting as if nothing happened. On the desktop this ranges from a minor annoyance to kind of messing some stuff up if I was in the middle of something at the time. In a game, this can range from being incredibly annoying to downright fatal.

 

[mhenley]

I've never had this happen, so my troubleshooting is just spitballing. Switch USB ports? Update USB drivers? Update mouse drivers? Increase mouse polling rate? Check power management settings to make sure that the hardware is not accidentally being put into 'sleep' states?

 

[michalrz]

Just a shot in the dark but the cursor getting stuck can be an indicator of a hard drive problem also.
You could check out event manager (the 'system' branch) right after it happens to check for a disk related event.

 

[phaseshift]

Are you using your mouse on a usb 3.0 port? If so try uninstalling the driver and reinstalling it. Use the usb ports in the front of your case while you are updating the back usb ports.

 

[Nazo]

Just a shot in the dark but the cursor getting stuck can be an indicator of a hard drive problem also.

No. For one, if the harddrive were stopping or something and bottlenecking the system, it would be a lot more than the mouse. You'll note that I just said the mouse wasn't responding. The keyboard is fine. For another, it's a relatively new drive that's in good condition. Finally, like I said, it worked fine in XP. I really doubt this drive cares about XP versus 7. I do (frankly I still prefer XP, but that's another discussion for another time) but it shouldn't even be able to know the difference...

Switch USB ports?

Tried it. In fact:

Update USB drivers?

I installed the latest when I was forced to reinstall 7 for the new CPU/motherboard combo I got. Fun fact btw, the mouse was doing this before the upgrade too. At the time I just assumed it was my processor not keeping up as well. It was single core (don't underestimate what a single core CPU can do though! I upgraded more for slightly better gaming and slightly lower average power usage -- I got one of AMD's new APUs which surprisingly enough actually use very little power for all that they do) and once in a blue moon could bottleneck when too much was going on at once. I assumed the mouse was being handled via some thread in 7 and something more direct in XP. However, this CPU is dual core, so clearly it's not a case of bottlenecking or the other core would be able to handle it (and there's pretty much a zero percent chance that just doing the most basic operations on the desktop could actually max out both cores...)

Update mouse drivers?

Also latest.

Increase mouse polling rate?

I really kind of need it where it is. However, it is set to 500Hz which is extremely high compared to what mice used to use. I'm pretty sure it did the same thing on the 1000Hz it defaulted to however, but don't feel like testing (I wouldn't mind if it were quick and easy to repeat, but it's kind of random unfortunately.)

Check power management settings to make sure that the hardware is not accidentally being put into 'sleep' states?

There's no sleep state option available for this mouse. The closest thing is the option in the Synapse software to turn off the LED, which is probably a 0.1 watt difference (unlike most other Razer mice with LEDs, this one has a surprisingly tame and non-annoying LED) and not really intended to save power, just a matter of looks mostly.

 

[BroHamBone]

I was having this happen with my g35 headset.... Ummmm, may sound funny but if your pc attracts dust, take some duster and blow out the usb ports.

The other would be to fully wipe drivers clean making sure nothing is left of the mouse on the hdd and plug the mouse in and let windows find the drivers.

 

[Nazo]

It should go without saying that the USB ports are clean. I just changed motherboards only a bit more than a week ago. I did recently blow out the PSU and videocard to be on the safe side (unrelated to the mouse thing, they just needed cleaning.)

As for the drivers, I need the Razer drivers. Like I said before, I need a custom DPI setting. TRUST me, if I could do without this bloatware I would do so in an instant. Actually, I'm most inclined to blame the drivers, but I can't uninstall them.

Are you using your mouse on a usb 3.0 port? If so try uninstalling the driver and reinstalling it. Use the usb ports in the front of your case while you are updating the back usb ports.

USB 2.0. Back versus front makes no difference and shouldn't.

 

[mlcarson]

I'm guessing a short in the mouse cord.

 

[Jorona]

I'd change the polling rate to 125. I had a SS Sensei that would do some wonky shit with high polling rates.

 

[Nazo]

Then I'll repeat myself: it doesn't (not past tense, present!) do this in Windows XP 32-bit. I can't make it clearer. This is a software issue, not hardware.

Anyway, I have a bit more to add after a bit more trial and error in games. Apparently I can even still click while it's doing this. Frankly I think it's those god-awful drivers. The sensitivity will go wonky for a few moments when it starts working again. At this point I'm suspecting that the drivers are randomly reinitializing it for no valid reason. I'll have to try to remember to manually close the software after it initializes the mouse for the first time I guess. I really wish someone would make an alternative to their software that supported custom DPIs really.

EDIT: It seems to do it even without the Synapse 2.0 software actually running, however, it also seems like it cuts out for a much shorter duration without that software... Maybe it's a combination of the two with the actual drivers freaking out all of a sudden or something followed by the bloatware reinitializing things.