No mouse access to Taskbar or Start Button

[Muse]

I've had this problem off and on on my main desktop system (Beauty in Sig). Sometimes I have no mouse access to Windows' taskbar or Start Button. It's as if it's just there to look pretty. Usually, if I log off and log on again or reboot, the problem disappears. I was running Windows 2000 until yesterday.

Yesterday, I installed a new mobo and cpu and XP and the problem continues, but now it seems worse. I had no problem the first few boots, but the last few boots I don't have mouse access to the taskbar/Start Button again and a reboot/relog isn't fixing it.

Ideas? What can I try here? Thanks.

PS The PC, Beauty, has been updated with the following MB and CPU, yesterday:

MSI K8N Neo v2.0 H MB
AMD Venice socket 754 2.2 GHz CPU

 

[ronach]

Muse,
You didn't list your mouse..looks like you changed out most stuff already except the mouse and it's software. Swap it out, if it is USB try it on it's secondary mode of operation, do an update on it's software or try the native windows drivers. Gee I hope you don't have one of those monitor black holes beginning to manifest itself on your screen, if that is the case you are in deep doo-doo. hee..good luck.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: ronach
Muse,
You didn't list your mouse..looks like you changed out most stuff already except the mouse and it's software. Swap it out, if it is USB try it on it's secondary mode of operation, do an update on it's software or try the native windows drivers. Gee I hope you don't have one of those monitor black holes beginning to manifest itself on your screen, if that is the case you are in deep doo-doo. hee..good luck.

Umm, the mouse is a Logitech MX510 corded. I have it connected to a KVM, which connects to the PS2 on the computer. So, to test things I plugged in my Logitech VX Revolution cordless, which uses a USB connected receiver. I bypassed the KVM and plugged directly into a USB port on the case. I had what appeared to be the very same problem using that (hadn't rebooted or anything). I then went into the BIOS and enabled USB mouse support, but I kind of doubt that that is implicated in this problem.

Anyway, for the moment I don't have the problem but I pretty much expect it to return. I'm going sort of ga ga with similar problems on this, my laptop. Application windows not responding to mouse clicks, similar on my desktop. For instance, I just installed Zonealarm Free on the newly configured desktop and there was a Zonealarm window asking me if I wanted to run a 3 minute tutorial. Nothing in the screen responded to keystrokes or mouse clicks and even Windows XP was powerless to end the unresponsive window. I tried to shut the one process that I could identify with Zonealarm and Windows was powerless to stop the process. A reboot only brought up the same unresponsive window and I had to uninstall Zonealarm. Fortunately, a reinstall didn't bring up the same behavior. I feel like I walked through a minefield and didn't get my leg blown off. Funny, when things go well on computers for a while you forget about all the frustrating stuff you had to go through. I swear, it's a fact of computing.

Edit: What's are "monitor black holes?" Never heard of them. Are you serious?😕