Mouse pointer changes colors

Question

For the past month or so I have had a sporadic problem with my mouse pointer changing color to orange with a yellow border. It has happened on about 4 or 5 occasions and at least 3 of them were when I booted up on a Tuesday morning. The reason I mention that is because I did have some scheduled maintenance that is supposed to run at 1AM on Tuesday's but I don't always leave my computer on. I thought maybe that had something to do with it.

When the cursor is orange, if I reboot the computer it goes back to normal but even though that seems to solve the problem temporarily I would like to know what is causing it.

My OS is Windows 98 SE and I have a Dell Dimension L550r.

The times that it has happened, the computer was fine the night before when I shut down but at reboot the mouse pointer is orange.

I have spoken to a few computer people and no one has ever heard of this problem.

I run AdAware, Spybot S&D and Ace Utilities regularly. I use AVG as my antivirus.

One more thing....which may or may not be important. My husband uses AOL on this computer.

NS_MaNiAc · Answer

Odd... really really... Odd.

jwatt · Answer

Susie924,

This might be a video adapter or video driver problem. The mouse cursor is controlled separately from the rest of the display in the hardware of most video adapters. If you have a Dell Resource CD for your system, you might try running the video diagnostics from the CD.

Jim

Susie924 · Answer

Jim,
I woke up this morning to the orange mouse pointer again so I checked to see if I have the Resource CD and I do.
When I go into the diagnostics there are many to choose from but none seem to be about video.

Can you tell me what I should be looking for?

TIA

Sue

jwatt · Answer

Sue,

Oddly enough, I wasn't able to find any information about video diagnostics for that Dell model either. I thought that at least basic video diagnostics were included on the Resource CDs! I also looked at the possibility that Intel had diagnostics for the video chipset in that system, and didn't find any evidence that they did!

You might want to try reinstalling the video driver for your system. This section of the Dimension L Series User Manual explains how to do that.

In case it's dependent on whether you or your husband are logged in to Win98, does this happen with both logins?

Jim

Susie924 · Answer

I looked at the instructions and it seems a little scary. I don't want to completely wreck my computer!

If it were the video drivers, wouldn't it happen all the time? It's the sporadicness (is that a word?) that puzzles me. I am trying to figure out if there is something that is done on those particular days that the pointer changes colors but so far I have come up empty.

We only have the one login on the computer.

Thanks for trying to help.

jwatt · Answer

Sue,

I'd expect the problem to be more consistent if it were the video drivers also. That's why I was hoping we'd be able to find diagnostics for the video adapter. Is the problem at all correlated with the length of time the machine's been turned on? If it is, perhaps some component is overheating.

You mentioned that the problem began about a month ago. Do you recall anything in the way of changes to the machine that were done shortly before the problem began? If you go into the Control Panel and look at the mouse settings, are they set the way you expect them to be? Does the problem change if you select a different appearance for the mouse pointer?

As NS_MaNiAc said...Odd...very odd...

Jim

Susie924 · Answer

I have been trying to think if there have been any changes. I know that I didn't do any and my husband says that he didn't do any but I'm not convinced of that.

He uses AOL and it seems like every time they have an upgrade or add something, it screws up my computer.

Other than this quirky mouse pointer the computer seems to be working ok. I guess I shouldn't make myself (and others) too crazy about it.

Thanks again for your help.

jwatt · Answer

Did you check the mouse control applet for changes? It would be an odd animated cursor indeed that would choose Tuesdays preferentially. As you apparently realized from your first post, not all animated cursors are friendly and may carry spyware/malware with them. In case Spybot, Ad-Aware, and AVG missed something, you might want to download HijackThis, a malware analysis and removal tool, and submit the log it produces for analysis.

Here's an illustrated guide to installing and running HijackThis that you may find helpful.

Copy and paste the contents of the log you saved in a new message in the Virus/Spyware Information and Removal board. Be sure to describe the problem you're experiencing. DON'T ATTEMPT TO FIX ANYTHING REPORTED BY HIJACKTHIS without expert advice!

Jim

Windows General

Mouse pointer changes colors

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