x220 mouse not working now and then

The USB mouse would work fine all day and then suddenly stops working at all. Each time this happens, I restart the computer and it would work again, so it must not be hardware problem. It's also not the mouse itself, as I tried another new mouse, the same thing happened. I went to Device Driver Manager and there is no error indication ("working properly"). What could be the cause and how to fix it? (I don't feel like keep restarting the computer too often. It's 5 years old and warranty period just passed!)

The trackpoint has no problem. I could use it when the mouse is not working.

It's on Windows 7 Pro 64 bit.

Thanks in advance!

 

Sounds like a driver crash. Time to uninstall and reinstall the drivers. Perhaps a system reinstall is in order to wipe out some of the nonsense that's built up over the years?

 

Thanks for the reply and suggestions. How do I reinstall the drivers? Also I suppose a system reinstall would need the Windows 7 disc which I don't have. Since the warranty just passed, I need to be careful, so will just try the driver reinstall if that's safe. (things really start just when warranty is over!)

 

1. Download the drivers from the Lenovo website, enter model number and whatnot correctly to make sure you're getting the right one.
2. Go into control panel and remove the trackpad software, the name really depends on the manufacturer of the trackpad, but its usually synaptics.
3. Go into device manager, find your trackpad and uninstall the driver.
4. Reboot the computer
5. Run the trackpad software you just downloaded.
6. Profit.

 

Thanks. As I mentioned the trackpoint works fine, it's the mouse (plugged to USB port) that is not functioning well. It's also not the USB port problem because I tried different ports and the same thing happens.

(If I let the computer go in stand-by or hibernate or shutdown, and wake it up, the mouse would work again, but after a while the same will repeat.)

So is this the trackpad driver problem? Just trying to make sure, thanks.

 

Krowe, one more question: if I remove the trackpad software (and driver), won't I be able to use the trackpoint, not just the mouse? How will I do the installation etc. after that? Thanks a bunch.
(Btw it's getting worse: even after hibernating the mouse still doesn't respond.)

 

Ah, its the external USB mouse. Well do the same thing except omit step 2, and change step 3 to uninstall the drivers of the USB mouse.

 

Thanks! Is updating drivers equivalent to installing new driver? At device manager I saw the options of updating the driver of UltraNav pointing devices, as well as updating the HID-compliant mouse driver (I guess the latter refers to the external mouse?). I tried to update both, the UltraNav driver was said to be updated, the mouse driver was said to be already the updated version. The problem is still there after this.