[Strychnos]

I have a Sony Vaio laptop, model number VGN-C140G, and I'm having some problems when using a USB mouse instead of the built in touchpad. Every couple of minutes the external mouse will just stop working, the red optical light is off so I assume it's not getting any power or anything. Unplugging it and then plugging it right back in fixes it until it shuts off again. I talked to a tech-rep for Sony and they said to disable the touchpad while using a USB mouse, which makes sense, although it did not fix the problem.

Any help is much appreciated

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Strychnos,

Have you tried replacing the batteries in the wireless mouse? It sounds like you may simply have batteries that are going dead. If replacing the mouse's batteries doesn't fix your problem - post back and we'll look at other potential issues.

- John

[John Hook]

Strychnos,

Have you tried replacing the batteries in the wireless mouse? It sounds like you may simply have batteries that are going dead. If replacing the mouse's batteries doesn't fix your problem - post back and we'll look at other potential issues.

- John

[Strychnos]

Sorry for the confusion, but it's a wired USB mouse.

[John Hook]

Strychnos,

Sorry for my misunderstanding. After doing some research on this problem, it seems that you're not alone. I believe this issue may have something to do with the ALPS touchpad driver conflicting with your mouse/mouse drive. You may want in either UPDATE the ALPS touchpad driver and see if this helps

http://esupport.sony...l...93&os_id=16


-OR- completely DISABLE the Alps Tochpad device (Right-click on My Computer, Click on Properties, click on Hardware, go to Device manager, locate the ALPS touchpad device, right-click on it and disable it.). You may need to uninstall, then reinstall your mouse driver as well.

Hope thils helps.

- John Hook

[Strychnos]

Alright, the laptop is restarting after installing that update. Is there a better way to re-install the mouse drivers other than just Uninstalling from the Device Manager and then plugging the mouse back in?

And thanks for taking the time to help

[John Hook]

Strychnos.

You can right-click on the "My Computer" icon on your desktop, left click on Properties, then click on the "Hardware" tab at the top, then open up the "Device Manager". From there, you can click on the "+" next to "Mice and other pointing devices". From here, you can right-click on the device you want to "uninstall" or "disable".

Depending on what happens after installing that updated touchpoint driver (i.e. the problem with your external USB mouse is fixed or is NOT fixed) - you may want to go in the Device Manager and DISABLE the touchpoint device and see if this fixes the problem with your external USB mouse.

Make sense?

- John

[Strychnos]

Doesn't appear to be fixed after the update and reinstalling the mouse driver. There is no disable option for the ALPS touchpad device as far as I can see, but I can disable it through the Vaio Support Center software that came with the laptop, so I went ahead and disabled the touchpad. This doesn't seem to be fixing the problem either, though - the mouse is still freezing up.

[Strychnos]

Actually, it seems to be cutting off less frequently with the touchpad disabled, but it does still occur.

This could just be coincidence, but it seems that if you leave it sitting without using the mouse while you're typing something lengthy or just away from the computer it will cut off.

[John Hook]

Strychnos,

A few possibilities come to mind with the problems you're still having with your external mouse.

1) Perhaps you external USB mouse is either dirty or faulty. The only SURE way to test this would be to plug it into a DIFFERENT PC's USB port and see if you continue to have the same problems. Perhaps either you have another PC or have a friend or collegue who does. It would be best to FIRST eliminate your external USB mouse as the potential cause of the issues you're having. If it turns out that your mouse "misbehaves" on a different PC - then it's safe to assume that the problem is with the MOUSE and not your Sony VAIO PC.

2) If your external mouse tests out OK on a different PC - there may still be a software/hardware conflict between the external mouse and your SONY's built-in touchpad. If this is the case, I would completely UNINSTALL any software related to your built-in touchpad device (Control Panel, Add Remove programs, find the touchpad or ALPS device and UNINSTALL). The other thing that might be possible is to power-reset your PC, bring it up into it's BIOS setup (some Function Key or Esc or Del - see the first screen that comes up on power-on). Go into the BIOS setup and see if there's a setting to disable the built-in touchpad "mouse" device.

3) You may also want to go to the mfg's support site for your External USB mouse and see if they have a newer driver. If so, download and install this and see if this fixes the problem.

I would follow these troubleshooting steps in ORDER if possible. Again, when searching for "Touchpad" along with your VAIO model, I found LOTS of posts about problems with external mice & the built-in touchpad device. This is NOT something that I've seen on other lapsops - i.e. Dell, Gateway, HP, Toshiba, etc. so this is quite possibly a Sony-specific issue.

Hope this helps.

- John