Horrendous Mouse Lag

[Brian Stirling]

I just completed a new PC build a couple weeks back and have been suffering with a somewhat intermittent mouse lag problem ever since. At times I don't notice much lag and at other times it's so bad the PC is unusable. Again, this is a new PC and the OS, Win10 Home, was installed clean from a MS thumbdrive. Additionally, this is no light weight PC and has the following:

Asus x99-Pro/USB3.1 motherboard
Intel i7-5820K CPU
32GB G.Skill DDR4 RAM 4x8GB
EVGA GeForce 980 Ti GPU
Samsung 950 Pro M.2 SSD

And, to top it off the Keyboard and Mouse are both MS products -- the Microsoft Sculpt Comfort Desktop (L3V-00001).

So, I have plenty of power, did a fresh install of the OS, and am using a MS keyboard and mouse and I still get intermittent mouse lag so bad the PC is unusable. There's a ton of comments on this on the web but sadly there's also a ton of conflicting recommendations to fix it with many posting comments about the fix not working so I'm at a loss here.

I have Win10 installed, as updates, on three laptops and have zero issues with mouse or touch pad lag on any of them, but on the box I need for video and image editing, a box that cost me north of $3K, I'm going from OK to dead in the water and I do not see what's causing it and the info from web searches isn't very helpful.

I can't begin to explain how painful this is!


Brian

 

[Puffnstuff]

I would make sure that you are running the latest chipset drivers. I would also make sure that your bios is the latest version. On my board when asus releases a bios with stability enhancements they've found and corrected issues.

 

[Elixer]

I just completed a new PC build a couple weeks back and have been suffering with a somewhat intermittent mouse lag problem ever since. At times I don't notice much lag and at other times it's so bad the PC is unusable. Again, this is a new PC and the OS, Win10 Home, was installed clean from a MS thumbdrive. Additionally, this is no light weight PC and has the following:

Asus x99-Pro/USB3.1 motherboard
...
And, to top it off the Keyboard and Mouse are both MS products -- the Microsoft Sculpt Comfort Desktop (L3V-00001).
...

I can't begin to explain how painful this is!
Brian

The keyboard & mouse operate on a 2.4GHz spectrum.
Do you have any USB 3 devices connected?
If so...
Welcome to the world of interference.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2463741

Yes, it sucks.

 

[Brian Stirling]

The keyboard & mouse operate on a 2.4GHz spectrum.
Do you have any USB 3 devices connected?
If so...
Welcome to the world of interference.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2463741

Yes, it sucks.

I have USB 3.0, USB 3.1 and USB 2.0 ports on the PC but the only device connected to any of these ports at the moment is the wifi dongle for the keyboard/mouse that's connected to one of the USB 2.0 ports in the back of the PC.

So, not sure if the USB is interfering with the keyboard/mouse dongle given the fact that at this time there are no devices connected to any of the USB 3.0 or 3.1 ports.

The odd thing is that if the USB was interfering with the wifi dongle shouldn't it also be interfering with the home wifi/internet connection? Additionally, the mouse lag issue isn't there 100% of the time -- it comes and goes and sometimes it's only a little annoying while at other times it's completely unusable so I'm unsure how the USB could modulate it's interference when nothing is connected to it.


Brian

 

[Brian Stirling]

I just discovered an Asus report on USB 3 problems and how to remedy them. It specifically mentioned the wireless mouse/keyboard issue that I have. So, what they suggested is to move the wireless dongle closer to the keyboard/mouse and that's what I'm trying now. I had the wifi dongle plugged into the USB2.0 port at the back of the PC that comes directly from the Asus motherboard IO panel and I've now moved that to the USB hub in my display. I didn't have the display USB hub connected before but I plugged it into the USB 2.0 port the dongle had been in at the back of the PC.

The cable and display hub is actually USB 3.0, but I have it connected into a USB 2.0 port on the PC as I have no plans to connect other devices to the display hub and didn't want to consume a USB 3.0 port on the PC -- the mouse/keyboard would never come near maxing the USB 2.0 speed so why waste a 3.0 port for it.

So, we'll see how this works, but so far no problems...


Brian

 

[Brian Stirling]

OK, so 4 hours later and I've not had any mouse lagging problems -- hopefully it remains trouble free and I'll repost in a day or two with confirmation. But, so far I'm a much happier person...


Brian

 

[SparkyJJO]

I was experiencing this on someone's PC I was working on this past week. There was a system doing a heavy data copy via wifi nearby. As soon as I paused that, the mouse returned to flawless response. Changed the wifi channel on the router and it 95% cured the problem when that system was doing its data copy again.

Interference. Gotta love it :/

This is one reason why I retain a wired mouse/keyboard for my desktop PC. Zero interference, ever.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Yeah, I have an old retired desktop with wired mouse and keyboard and if I was unable to fix my problem I was prepared to revert to the old wired mouse and keyboard. But, it's looking like moving the dongle closer was all that was needed.


Brian

 

[us3rnotfound]

I was experiencing this on someone's PC I was working on this past week. There was a system doing a heavy data copy via wifi nearby. As soon as I paused that, the mouse returned to flawless response. Changed the wifi channel on the router and it 95% cured the problem when that system was doing its data copy again.

Interference. Gotta love it :/

This is one reason why I retain a wired mouse/keyboard for my desktop PC. Zero interference, ever.

Is that why they have the 5GHz wifi on most new "wireless routers" (routers with builtin-in AP)?

 

[Brian Stirling]

It sure seems odd that more than 30 years after mice went mainstream we could still be having difficulties with tech that's been refined and improved for 30+ years. It also seems strange that the FCC would permit the kind of radiation that we appear to be seeing. No ones guarding the hen house.

One further update ... I used the PC for over 12 hours yesterday and didn't have a single issue so I'm pretty close to calling this -- problem solved!


Brian

 

[SparkyJJO]

Well part of the reason why we have this is the 2.4GHz band is the "free-for-all" band that the FCC has allotted for consumer wireless devices. With more and more stuff all vying for that bandwidth you're going to run into more and more interference.

 

[Brian Stirling]

The keyboard & mouse operate on a 2.4GHz spectrum.
Do you have any USB 3 devices connected?
If so...
Welcome to the world of interference.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2463741

Yes, it sucks.

Well Elixer, it's been two full days now without a problem and I want to thank you for pointing me in the right direction even if it didn't make sense to me at first. Your suggestion modified my Google search which quickly brought up an Asus link and since my motherboard is Asus I clicked on it. Thankfully the Asus article was exactly about wireless keyboard and mouse issues and there suggestion to move the keyboard and mouse closer to the dongle was the key to resolving my problem.

So, thanks to you this killer problem appears to be fully flattened and in your honor I'm consuming a cold one -- Corona Extra...


Brian

 

[mikeymikec]

I've had it on numerous occasions that if the receiver is plugged in at the back of the tower, responsiveness of a wireless keyboard/mouse goes to pot. Plugging it in to the front of the tower (so the receiver faces the input devices), or having it on the end of an extension lead fixes the problem.

 

[redzo]

OK, so 4 hours later and I've not had any mouse lagging problems -- hopefully it remains trouble free and I'll repost in a day or two with confirmation. But, so far I'm a much happier person...
Brian

Good job!
I basically did the same with my setup and never had any issues after that. My LCD display came with 2 usb ports. I've never used them before since they are placed at the rear of the display and they were pretty hard to access, but they were perfect for my wireless usb keyboard and mouse transmitter/receiver.