you're going to have to tell me (computer problem)

[yertle-the-turtle]

why the heck does my monitor keep randomly flickering. it's pretty unnerving. i feel it might blow up quite soon.

and what's wrong with my mouse? certain times I can't move it properly and sometimes when I'm not touching it it starts moving to the left of my screen for no apparent reason!

 

[pax]

That random flickering of the screen could be problematic. That happened to me once, and my monitor burned out shortly thereafter. Completely fried. Had to get a new one.

 

[therulz]

Try this...

Try degaussing (demagnetizing) your monitor first...a setting is found on your monitors own menu...mine by pushing the dial button in the front of the monitor....check your monitor cable and plug in connections and mouse connections to see if they are loose. Make sure you have speakers and radioequipment or anything magnetized away from the monitor as the magnets will cause the tube to flicker and do funny colors.

Clean your mouseball and rollers...the ball unscrews from underneath easily..I use alcohol and a qtip (carefully)...it gums up easily when you use it a lot...then go to start>control panel>system>and check that you don't have any hardware or driver conflicts for your monitor or mouse (they would be marked with (!)....last you can try start>control panel>mouse and slow down the hardware acceleration and double click speed on it might help keep it from jumping around.

Have you installed new hardware or drivers recently (new is not always best and get them from the manufacturer if you do need them to resolve a conflict)? I hope something here helps.

 

[KhanadaRhodes]

i second everything therulz says. does your mouse have a ball or is it an optical mouse? if you're not sure, an optical mouse has no ball and it has like a red light underneath it.

anyway, i've got an optical mouse and it happens to me sometimes. it mostly has to do with the fact that my mousepad is all shiny and has a plastic top as opposed to the usual kind that are foam or whatever. that can cause it to suddenly shoot across the screen. anyway, for most other people (since most don't have a mousepad like me) there's dust trapped where the laser beam is. you can blow on it to get it out or use a q-tip to brush it out.

 

[yertle-the-turtle]

it has a mouse ball. thanks for the suggestions, i will try them out.

 

[therulz]

yep...

That it does...cotonnelle leaves a lot of lint you have defuzz...lol...just kidding. The rollers around the ball will gum up in no time flat, but I think you also have a hardware acceleration (pointer speed) problem with it. Check them both out, you can always advance it back up when it's clean.