The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Weird USB issue

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by Rishwin, Nov 22, 2011.

  1. Rishwin

    Rishwin Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    215
    Messages:
    886
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Last night i was copying something from my external HDD to my M11x (both using USB 3), and i noticed that while it was copying my mouse (plugged into the USB slot behind the HDD) was jerking and lagging.

    I tested the trackpad and the cursor moved freely without issues, but the moment i tried to use the mouse the cursor became jerky & choppy again. Once the copying is over, everything's fine.

    Is my HDD copying at the entire USB bandwidth which is slowing down my mouse?

    This happened yesterday while plugged in, and again just now running off battery.
     
  2. darkdomino

    darkdomino Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    203
    Messages:
    833
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    31
    I've noticed a weird kind of lag that occasionally happens in Windows when there is a lot of disk activity. Just like you said, the mouse will lag a bit... but then "catch up" and everything is fine.

    It's not really noticeable for me, and only happens rarely. If yours is doing it consistently then you may have a bad USB port. Might wanna call Dell?
     
  3. bouddha

    bouddha Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    8
    Messages:
    94
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    15
    I think the USB bus was just too busy dealing with the transfert to allow smooth operation of the mouse.
    had something similar when I had all my music on an external USB HDD and I couldn't really use my comp without having stuttering on the music, it seems that USB is quite sensitive to processor or bus activity.