Even though we have touch-screen-based Windows 11/10 devices, the mouse remains an important part of usage, especially when you want to do some hardcore work. When using Touch, it’s a bit hard to drag – and when it comes to the editing of images, and videos, nothing beats the mouse. So if you are a mouse user, you may find it irritating if your mouse pointer lags or freezes on Windows 11/10, it’s a big problem.
Mouse Pointer and Cursor lagging, freezing or stuttering
In this guide, we are discussing a few tips which can help you get rid of this Mouse Pointer lags or freezes so you can use your mouse smoothly.
- Clean mouse and mouse pad
- Change USB Port
- Get back to Default Settings
- Disable Smooth Scrolling
- Update or Rollback Mouse Drivers
- Check if your computer is turning off the mouse
- Update Graphics Drivers
- Set No-delay for Touchpad.
1] Clean mouse and mouse pad
This might just sound silly, but many a time either of these two is a problem. We don’t have mouse balls anymore, but even those laser lights can get dirty. Clean the bottom of your mouse. The second is cleaning up your mouse pad which might have dust collected from years of usage! If this helps, make sure to keep this in mind for the future.
2] Change USB Port
Another basic tip, but chances are the USB port with which either your mouse is connected, or the dongle of your wireless mouse has gone rogue. Try connecting to a different port, and see if it works for you.
Read: How to perform Mouse Latency Test in Windows.
3] Get back to Default Settings
It’s always a good idea to see if your mouse is working as expected under default settings. Since we are dealing with a pointer issue, follow the steps below:
- Navigate to Start > Settings > Devices.
- Click on Mouse and Touchpad.
- In the right pane, click on Additional Mouse Settings.
- Under Pointer tab, Click on Use Default.
- Click on Apply and OK.
4] Disable Smooth Scrolling
You can slow down both horizontal, and vertical scrolling of the mouse in mouse settings. Also called as Smooth scrolling, it helps if you think websites are scrolling up and down way too quickly.
Related: Mouse Pointer keeps flickering.
5] Update or Rollback Mouse Drivers
You need to either update or roll back the drivers. It is possible that after updating Windows, your driver needs a refresh. On the contrary, if you just updated the mouse driver, and the issue started after that you need to roll back the driver.
From the WinX Menu, open Device Manager. Select your Mouse, and open Properties with a right-click. Next switch to the Driver section. The rollback is only available if the update was recent. If that’s, not the case, click on Update Driver, and Windows will automatically check for the problems.
6] Check if your computer is turning off the mouse
If you are using a laptop, the power management might turn off the devices that are not in use to save power. This can happen with the USB based device.
To change this go to Device Manager > Universal serial bus controllers > USB Root Hub > Power management > uncheck “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power“.
If you have multiple USB Root hubs, you can try changing them one by one, and see which one works for you.
7] Update Graphics Drivers
If you are facing an issue during any high graphics usage or when playing a game, its best to update the drivers. In case you have an Intel, update its graphics drivers from the device manager. In case you have NVIDIA, you can do the same. There are two more settings you need to change for NVIDIA.
- Open the NVIDIA control panel from the system tray, and change the high-performance NVIDIA processor to Auto-select. This will make sure the driver uses the best options suitable for the mouse.
- The second thing you can do is to disable Nvidia Share from the settings of GeForce experience app.
8] Set No-delay for Touchpad
If this is happening with your touchpad, you can try setting the delay to zero. Open Settings > Devices > Mouse and Touchpad. Here you can set the delay before clicks to No Delay.
These tips should help you solve the mouse pointer lags or freezes on Windows 10 issue. If you have any other suggestions, please do share.
Related reads:
- Keyboard or Mouse not working
- Mouse left-click button not working
- Right-click not working or slow to open.