Mouse hiding in cable tray cheesed off its bemused user
- Reference: 1660897809
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/08/19/on_call/
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This week, we meet a reader we'll call "Grant" who was summoned to a user’s desk to address an issue described as "My mouse pointer is twitching."
Grant visited the user, who moved the mouse pointer to a box – at which point it did indeed start to move despite no human hand upon the digital rodent!
[2]
Testing a mouse known to be in good working order was the obvious first step towards a fix. Grant had one with him and plugged it into a USB port.
[3]
[4]
The wandering pointer recurred.
Grant tried another USB port. The pointer again started to move.
[5]
At this point Grant sat down in front of the machine, rebooted it, checked the user's existing mouse and his known good mouse.
And seemed to have solved the problem.
But as Grant turned to leave, the user rolled his chair back under the desk … and proclaimed the problem had recurred!
[6]
At this point Grant decided to check the Windows Device Manager, which revealed a second mouse – a trackball, actually – was connected to the machine!
But the trackball had fallen off the physical desktop into a cable tray. When the user rolled under their desk, they nudged the tray, which jostled the trackball, which made the on-screen pointer move.
[7]'I wonder what this cable does': How to tell thicknet from a thickhead
[8]Be careful where you install software, and who installs it
[9]Psst … Want to buy a used IBM Selectric? No questions asked
How had the trackball been forgotten? Grant learned of a user who, in the age of PCs that offered a single PS/2 port, routinely swapped a mouse and trackball … and continued to do so once both the PC and the pointing device migrated to USB.
Once the wonders of USB became apparent, the user moved on, but the trackball was left in place and eventually fell – literally – into disuse and the cable tray. The inheritor of the PC believed the machine had no mouse, requested a new one and managed to connect it without noticing the presence of the trackball.
Grant suspects that arrangement may have persisted for years before he came along.
And the sting in the tail? Grant's employer blocked the front-facing USB ports on its PCs, which was the reason the twin rodents were never detected.
If you've ever discovered hidden hardware that gave colleagues hell, let us know by [10]sending a message to On Call . Yours truly has [11]resumed custody of this column and inherited a modest mailbag, so all contributions are welcome! ®
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Multiple keyboards were always loads of fun! Connect to computer of person in other cubicle and randomly punch keys once in a while.
Wireless Mice
Stop me if you've heard this one...
We had a small sister company, that didn't have an IT department, who's MD tended to do things without asking*. On one occasion he decided he and the FD needed wireless mice and went out and bought them from his usual supplier (Dixons - it was a while ago!)
As usual he then wasn't happy and expected us to sort the problem for him so I rocked up there on my next trip up to the area. Apparently his mouse pointer kept moving randomly, and the FD was having the same issue. Now this was many years ago before wireless mice used encoded signals and effectively their two desks were back-to-back with just a flimsy stud partition wall between. Can you see where this is going?
Two mice running on the same channel (and no option to change it) a few inches apart was always going to be a recipe for disaster. The MD kept his, the FD went back to his cable mouse and normal service resumed.
*Another one was to buy a Sony Vaio laptop from Dixons, against company standards. Just over a year later a windows update overwrote a driver and effectively bricked it (IIRC the display reverted to EGA 16 Colours). Did he have the original install disk(s)? No. Was the driver available from Sony? No. Did Dixons want to help? No. It turned out the laptop was a DSG parts bin special directly from Sony Japan. Sony UK weren't responsible, Sony Japan referred it back to DSG, Dixons said it was out of warranty so not their problem. His "I've saved money over the corporate deal" ended up costing another new laptop.
Re: Wireless Mice
Of course the MD knows better than anyone (because he's the MD^) how to do stuff, had the lappy continued to work (out of pure luck*) then his money saving idea would have been extended to everyone else thus proving his superior level of genius.
^Many MDs are expert at 'something', the smart ones know when they've stepped away from that.
*The few Vaio I've seen had very delicate keyboards that fall apart far too easily.
Re: Wireless Mice
I agree on both MDs and Vaio, I've been lucky with the former recently, I wouldn't touch the latter with the proverbial barge-pole.
Re: Wireless Mice
I had several Vaio laptops back in the 90’s and noughties - they were solid pieces of kit and never gave any significant problems - that is until Windows 8/10, as Sony had stopped support and no suitable video drivers were available for the update. A 20yo Vaio continued in service until this year, running XP and connected to a projector in a local church (offline and just needed to run the PowerPoint viewer); it was only replaced with a new laptop because internet access was starting to be needed. I also had a 15yo Vaio still running as a loan m/c until last year (dual boot Windows Vista and Ubuntu). A third Vaio was also retired last year - running a 32bit Linux for its final 5years and retired because its battery decided to inflate (hastily removed). I could still get a replacement battery but the easing of C-19 restrictions has reduced my need for loan kit.
Overall, I found Vaio’s solid and reliable kit. I’m on Macs nowadays and find them to be similarly solid and reliable. Of course, others are free to disagree.
We used to do this...
When wireless mice first came out. Except they only had two channels, so if more than two people were using them, everyone's equipment quickly becamse useless.
And for a joke, when you were bored, you'd just change the channel on your mouse and move it around a lot and wait for the cries of surprise and annoyance from your colleagues.
Even better were the keyboards. Change the channel, and type something like "This is IT, your account has been suspended for watching too much porn"
Come across this a few times
Although for me its been a case of a user has picked up a new keyboard and mouse set (For remote sites we always make sure reception had stock as they are cheap), put the old keyboard and mouse behind the machine.
Many numpty stickers have been deployed
"Out of Cheese" Error
I was expecting a real mouse, chewing on the cables.