I've been dealing with a frustrating issue where my mouse randomly fails to register clicks, especially on the taskbar and home screen apps. It occasionally generates its own middle mouse button inputs, which causes my games to pause unexpectedly. I've got full control over the mouse itself, but the clicking problem persists. I've made sure to troubleshoot thoroughly, including a complete shutdown from WiFi, and here's a list of everything I've already tried: using Ctrl+Alt+Del (which only works temporarily), running SFC scan with no corrupted files found, deleting the automatic destination cache, reinstalling the mouse driver, trying out different mice and USB ports, doing a fresh Windows install, scanning with Malwarebytes for issues, checking hardware components (CPU, RAM, GPU), reverting to a previous Windows update, booting in safe mode, running startup repair, and using the command center to repair my Windows drive. My PC specs are a Radeon 7900XTX, an i9-13900K, and 32GB of RAM, and I've had this setup for about three years now. My motherboard is the ROG Strix Z790-H.
4 Answers
It sounds like you've done pretty much everything you can. Given that the issue occurs with different mice and ports, my bet is on your motherboard's USB controller being the culprit. You might want to check if there's a BIOS update available; if that doesn’t help, consider getting an RMA for your motherboard or using a USB hub as a temporary fix.
Another thing you can try is deleting the mouse from the Control Panel. Unplug the mouse, reboot your PC, and then plug the mouse back in to see if it registers correctly. It worked for me once!
I’ll give that a shot! I remember deleting it before, but it popped back up. Maybe turning off the auto-download is key this time.
I rebooted, and the phantom device appears again, but it’s not affecting my mouse anymore! I guess I'll just wait and see if it stays stable.
Have you tried to renew the battery? Just checking, since sometimes it’s the simplest things! But if it's a wired mouse, then that's extra unfortunate.
Yeah, I’ve used a wired mouse and tested a few. I really hope this isn’t just me overlooking an easy fix.
I had a similar problem, but I managed to find a workaround. When I updated my BIOS, it mistakenly recognized two mice connected (which wasn’t the case). I deleted the phantom device from the Device Manager and set my system not to automatically download drivers. After a restart, that seemed to help. Just a thought — it might resolve your issue too!
Thanks for the advice! I’ll definitely look into updating my BIOS before doing anything drastic.