Help troubleshooting a mouse / repairing a mouse scroll wheel?
I have two wireless mice. One is a really good mouse that served me for years until it got too beat up, and now the scroll wheel doesn't work very well. The other is a newer HP mouse (specifically HP 280 Silent Wireless Mouse, product number 19u64AA) that is a bloody piece of shit and I hate it.
The HP mouse currently has two main issues with it. 1, it doesn't "sleep" or turn itself off after a period of inactivity. It just stays on, even if the usb dongle is disconnected, until the battery just dies on it. 2, it's clicking software/firmware had a fucking stroke or some shit. It only clicks on the active screen; so for example, if I have Firefox open and fullscreen, it will not click on the task bar on the bottom of my screen at all. It won't even register that it's hovering over something down there, it just refuses. That, and the middle click won't work. It's genuinely annoying, because the mouse used to work with no issues. I have no idea what caused this, and my conspiracy theory is that HP just kills mice that are alive for too long, because this is fucking horse shit. I do not recommend this fucking mouse at all for this.
What's funny is, I tried both my previous mouse (the one with the broken scroll wheel), and my desktop's wired mouse, and both worked excellently. No issues at all, unable to replicate the issues experienced by my HP mouse. Crawling through the journalctl
logs don't show anything wrong with any of the mice, at least not that my noob ass could tell, and the HP support page for the 280 doesn't have a fucking user manual for it. There just doesn't seem to be one at all, not one I can find at least.
Anyways, /rant. How can I see what's wrong with the 280, or fix what might be wrong with it (or factory reset the mouse, if that's a thing)? Alternatively, how can I fix my other mouse's scroll wheel (Victsing Wireless Mouse model PC106A my beloved)?
Edit: Forgot to mention, on Linux mint 22.1 cinnamon, on an HP laptop oddly enough (you would think HP accessories would work with HP products). if you need any information, journalctl
, inxi
, my fucking social security number, whatever, lmk.
over_clox likes this.
over_clox
in reply to ComicalMayhem • • •Just spotting a quick check you could try, at least as far as the scroll wheel..
Try blowing the mouse out with compressed air, especially around the wheel, buttons, and laser lens.
Most if not all scroll wheels use a slotted disk and optical sensors to detect the position and movement of the wheel, so if dust and/or dead skin particles get in the wrong spots, it can totally confuse the mouse.
Beyond that, if the click on the mouse wheel doesn't work, it could be damaged either way, open circuit or short circuit. If it failed short circuit, the mouse will think you're constantly holding the wheel button down, which would keep steady delivering a signal, running the battery down and confusing the operating system at the same time.
Good luck 🤞
ComicalMayhem
in reply to over_clox • • •over_clox
in reply to ComicalMayhem • • •ComicalMayhem
in reply to over_clox • • •over_clox
in reply to ComicalMayhem • • •I just got home and tried a thing on your behalf, using a perfectly good wired mouse of mine.
I simulated my suspicion that the mouse wheel click button might be shorted out, by holding the wheel button down while trying to left click on the taskbar.
Sure enough, in that condition, it doesn't recognize the left click on the taskbar.
I am pretty sure your wheel click button is shorted out and the system thinks you're constantly holding it down.