Moving mouse causes 100% CPU usage.

[Charles33]

Using a T42 Thinkpad.

Have had it for a couple of years now with little problems.

Until tonight.

All of the sudden moving my mouse on any window causes 100% CPU usage and thus lag on selecting things.

Moving my mouse on the desktop is fine.

Navigating start-menu is fine.

But if I open any sort of window and move my mouse it shoots to 100% CPU usage. Windows can include web pages, programs, anything.

When the mouse is not moving, normal CPU usage.

This is using a USB mouse as well as the touchpad. I have tried unplugging the USB mouse and just using the touchpad, same result.

One odd thing I JUST noticed. Leaving the mouse perfectly still, if I use the scroll wheel to scrolll the webpage up and down it shoots to 100% CPU usage.

No virus' or spyware. Did a thorough check for both.

Hopefully someone can help?



***quick edit:

Seems whatever window the cursor is moving over is what shoots to 100%. So if I am moving the cursor over IE, it shows IExplore.exe at 100%.

[richk]

Try disabling the touchpad and trackpoint in the BIOS. If that fixes it, try turning one at a time off and see which is sick.

[Charles33]

Disabled both in the BIOS and no change. Thank you for the reply though.

Odd thing I just noticed as well, its not just the mouse cursor.

If I continuously right or left click on a window the CPU usage jumps to 100% as well. So its any input to do with the mouse or touchpad, whether its cursor movement or clicks.

[nutjobox]

it seems like the windows is having a hard time talking to your harddrive, or the memory. try your manufacturer's hard drive utility to test the drive, and memtest to test the ram to make sure those are working properly. it could possibly be a video card issue, so try reinstalling the latest drivers for that.

[Charles33]

Reinstalled and updated the Video drivers. Nothing changed. This was actually my first thought.

Will test the hard drive and ram next.

[richk]

I wonder if a key is stuck on the keyboard. It is hard to test that without a spare.

[agarza]

Try booting with a Live CD and then see if that strange behaviour is happening. If not, then it's likely your Windows install is infected with some nasty stealthy virus

[Charles33]

Unfortunately I dont have a CD burner, so cant do the Live boot.

This is my Girlfriends work Laptop (though its only used for work purposes about an hour a month) so cant really "do" too much to it. Just trying to see if I can find out what the issue is myself without sending it in and losing it for a week.

Have just finished my 4th virus scan and still nothing. Kaspersky is installed and has been running for over a year on this laptop. Last night I installed AVG as well and ran it. Then I have run two online scans (Panda scan and PC Pitstop).

Havent downloaded a thing in a few weeks and this problem just started last night. I only use this laptop for web browsing. So no clue how I could get a virus on here anyways.

Checked for a stuck key and didnt find one.

Checked memory and harddrive and found no issues.

Guess this thing will be going on a trip for a week.

So if you really think its a nasty stealthy virus, how would I go about finding it?

[GACrabill]

So if you really think its a nasty stealthy virus, how would I go about finding it?

Have you read about this new one :
"Microsoft: Attacks on Windows flaw rise"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070330/ap_ ... 9fCDvMWM0F

"Hackers stepped up attacks Friday on computers running some versions of Windows, a day after Microsoft disclosed a hole related to the mouse cursor. ....................."

[Charles33]

So if you really think its a nasty stealthy virus, how would I go about finding it?

Have you read about this new one :
"Microsoft: Attacks on Windows flaw rise"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070330/ap_ ... 9fCDvMWM0F

"Hackers stepped up attacks Friday on computers running some versions of Windows, a day after Microsoft disclosed a hole related to the mouse cursor. ....................."

Looks like that was actually it.

I come home tonight, open up the laptop and am bombarded with virus alerts.

Ends up being a password stealing virus that until tonight was undetectable.

I got it through a site called guildportal.com, which is a site for hosting guilds for MMO's. Never downloaded anything, it was somehow put in windows/temp and went from there.

Looks like they updated virus programs to detect and eliminate it. Were 3 instances of it on my computer with EIGHTEEN instances of it on system restore files.

Just one of those nasty, nasty zero day virus' that not much can be done about. [censored], dont people have better things to do than create programs that just annoy and hurt people?!

So in short, watch out folks and keep those AV programs up to date.

[GACrabill]

Ends up being a password stealing virus that until tonight was undetectable.

I got it through a site called guildportal.com, which is a site for hosting guilds for MMO's. Never downloaded anything, it was somehow put in windows/temp and went from there.

Looks like they updated virus programs to detect and eliminate it. Were 3 instances of it on my computer with EIGHTEEN instances of it on system restore files.

Just one of those nasty, nasty zero day virus' that not much can be done about. [censored], dont people have better things to do than create programs that just annoy and hurt people?!

So in short, watch out folks and keep those AV programs up to date.

Critical security fix for mouse problem to be available from Microsoft on Tuesday, 04/03 :
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/56649.html