Another problem?

Gordon wrote:
On Wed, 26 Dec 2012 09:50:39 -0500, Paul wrote:

Gordon wrote:
On Wed, 26 Dec 2012 05:38:12 -0800, "Scott J" wrote:

"Gordon" wrote in message
...

On Tue, 25 Dec 2012 08:16:57 -0500, "SC Tom" wrote:

"BillW50" wrote in message
...
SNIP
Wow! That looks like the keyboard and the mouse doesn't like each other.
The keyboard must be leaking enough radiation (radio frequency) to mask
the mouse signal. I would think something with Microsoft's name on it
would provide better shielding.
But it's not a Windows 8 problem, so which part of "HP" and "Logitech" has
Microsoft's name on it?

The mouse problem comes and goes, and I'm beginning to think it is
being caused by something other than the keyboard. Any time it
happens, just moving the mouse a few inches clears the problem,
temporarily. It may bounce back in 10 minutes, or it may not show up
again for several hours. Also, it seems to happen most often when I'm
using Internet Explorer. Strange????

My wife suggested that I shouldn't pick my nose then use the mouse
without washing my hands. She thinks my boogies may be causing the
mouse to gum up, or some such. ;-) Gordon


A few weeks ago we were cleaning out the attic and found some old
computer stuff, including a mouse pad. We liked the design on the pad
and put it into service. Shortly after, the mouse started acting up.
Turns out, the surface of the mouse pad didn't play well with the wireless
mouse. We put back the old pad, and all is well.

I don't think my problem has any ties to something like thsi. I don't
use a mouse pad and I have the mouse on the desktop over the pull-out
writing board. That is, there is nothing metalic or magnetic under or
close to the mouse.

A new cell phone center with a tall pole was recently errrected about
half a mile north of our house. I'm wondering if maybe this could be
causing some interference with my wireless mouse???? Gordon
Compare the list of frequencies in these two articles. I don't see
an overlap, but in presenting these, I'm assuming the keyboard uses
Bluetooth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies

{whole list of frequencies...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth

"Bluetooth uses a radio technology called frequency-hopping spread
spectrum, which chops up the data being sent and transmits chunks
of it on up to 79 bands (1 MHz each; centered from 2402 to 2480 MHz)
in the range 2,400–2,483.5 MHz (allowing for guard bands). This range
is in the globally unlicensed ISM 2.4 GHz short-range radio frequency
band. It usually performs 800 hops per second, with
Adaptive Frequency-Hopping (AFH) enabled."

Just for comparison, the leaky microwave oven as culprit...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven

"Microwave radiation is ... usually at 2.45 gigahertz (GHz) ...
or, in large industrial/commercial ovens, at 915 megahertz (MHz)."

So that one overlaps. But the signal is only there, if you're
using the microwave oven (and the door seals leak).

A keyboard doesn't have to use Bluetooth. There is some other scheme
used, with a much simpler modulation scheme. And that scheme is also
less likely to resist interference. It could well use a higher
transmission power as well. I don't know the details, and haven't
seen a web page that compares the methods used. At least the Bluetooth
modulation scheme, is more likely to be used now, due to the
level of technical sophistication. If any of the 79 bands is
temporarily knocked out, the thing can still work.

To other RF devices, Bluetooth might be interpreted as an "increase
in background noise". Rather than knocking out some other communications
for sure. UWB (not very common) carries that notion to an extreme.
Some day, we'll be debugging problems with this. (It might be used
for connecting an LCD monitor, without a cable.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-wideband

Paul

The keyboard is wired. Only the mouse is wireless. It works very well
most of the time but occasionally it will get this sticky problem.
That usually lasts only a snort while and it seems that if I move the
mouse away from the keyboard this causes the problem to go away for
the time being. I'm wondering if just picking the mouse up to move it
does something like jostle the ball around or maybe I touch the
wireless antenna in some way that causes it to resume normal activity.
Gordon

The wireless mouse is probably optical. Ball mice are less common now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_mouse

"An optical mouse might use an image sensor having an 18 × 18 pixel array
of monochromatic pixels. Its sensor would normally share the same ASIC
as that used for storing and processing the images. One refinement would
be accelerating the correlation process by using information from
previous motions, and another refinement would be preventing deadbands
when moving slowly by adding interpolation or frame-skipping."

If it really is a ball mouse, and is wireless, the wireless protocol
might not be Bluetooth. Then it's a matter of whether something else
in the house, is using the exact same frequency. I suppose, if a
cell tower is present near by, perhaps the front end of the
receiver could be overloaded with signal (even after filtering).

Paul

On Wed, 26 Dec 2012 16:31:16 -0500, Paul wrote:

Gordon wrote:
On Wed, 26 Dec 2012 09:50:39 -0500, Paul wrote:

Gordon wrote:
On Wed, 26 Dec 2012 05:38:12 -0800, "Scott J" wrote:

"Gordon" wrote in message
...

On Tue, 25 Dec 2012 08:16:57 -0500, "SC Tom" wrote:

"BillW50" wrote in message
...
SNIP
Wow! That looks like the keyboard and the mouse doesn't like each other.
The keyboard must be leaking enough radiation (radio frequency) to mask
the mouse signal. I would think something with Microsoft's name on it
would provide better shielding.
But it's not a Windows 8 problem, so which part of "HP" and "Logitech" has
Microsoft's name on it?

The mouse problem comes and goes, and I'm beginning to think it is
being caused by something other than the keyboard. Any time it
happens, just moving the mouse a few inches clears the problem,
temporarily. It may bounce back in 10 minutes, or it may not show up
again for several hours. Also, it seems to happen most often when I'm
using Internet Explorer. Strange????

My wife suggested that I shouldn't pick my nose then use the mouse
without washing my hands. She thinks my boogies may be causing the
mouse to gum up, or some such. ;-) Gordon


A few weeks ago we were cleaning out the attic and found some old
computer stuff, including a mouse pad. We liked the design on the pad
and put it into service. Shortly after, the mouse started acting up.
Turns out, the surface of the mouse pad didn't play well with the wireless
mouse. We put back the old pad, and all is well.

I don't think my problem has any ties to something like thsi. I don't
use a mouse pad and I have the mouse on the desktop over the pull-out
writing board. That is, there is nothing metalic or magnetic under or
close to the mouse.

A new cell phone center with a tall pole was recently errrected about
half a mile north of our house. I'm wondering if maybe this could be
causing some interference with my wireless mouse???? Gordon
Compare the list of frequencies in these two articles. I don't see
an overlap, but in presenting these, I'm assuming the keyboard uses
Bluetooth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies

{whole list of frequencies...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth

"Bluetooth uses a radio technology called frequency-hopping spread
spectrum, which chops up the data being sent and transmits chunks
of it on up to 79 bands (1 MHz each; centered from 2402 to 2480 MHz)
in the range 2,400–2,483.5 MHz (allowing for guard bands). This range
is in the globally unlicensed ISM 2.4 GHz short-range radio frequency
band. It usually performs 800 hops per second, with
Adaptive Frequency-Hopping (AFH) enabled."

Just for comparison, the leaky microwave oven as culprit...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven

"Microwave radiation is ... usually at 2.45 gigahertz (GHz) ...
or, in large industrial/commercial ovens, at 915 megahertz (MHz)."

So that one overlaps. But the signal is only there, if you're
using the microwave oven (and the door seals leak).

A keyboard doesn't have to use Bluetooth. There is some other scheme
used, with a much simpler modulation scheme. And that scheme is also
less likely to resist interference. It could well use a higher
transmission power as well. I don't know the details, and haven't
seen a web page that compares the methods used. At least the Bluetooth
modulation scheme, is more likely to be used now, due to the
level of technical sophistication. If any of the 79 bands is
temporarily knocked out, the thing can still work.

To other RF devices, Bluetooth might be interpreted as an "increase
in background noise". Rather than knocking out some other communications
for sure. UWB (not very common) carries that notion to an extreme.
Some day, we'll be debugging problems with this. (It might be used
for connecting an LCD monitor, without a cable.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-wideband

Paul

The keyboard is wired. Only the mouse is wireless. It works very well
most of the time but occasionally it will get this sticky problem.
That usually lasts only a snort while and it seems that if I move the
mouse away from the keyboard this causes the problem to go away for
the time being. I'm wondering if just picking the mouse up to move it
does something like jostle the ball around or maybe I touch the
wireless antenna in some way that causes it to resume normal activity.
Gordon

The wireless mouse is probably optical. Ball mice are less common now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_mouse

"An optical mouse might use an image sensor having an 18 × 18 pixel array
of monochromatic pixels. Its sensor would normally share the same ASIC
as that used for storing and processing the images. One refinement would
be accelerating the correlation process by using information from
previous motions, and another refinement would be preventing deadbands
when moving slowly by adding interpolation or frame-skipping."

If it really is a ball mouse, and is wireless, the wireless protocol
might not be Bluetooth. Then it's a matter of whether something else
in the house, is using the exact same frequency. I suppose, if a
cell tower is present near by, perhaps the front end of the
receiver could be overloaded with signal (even after filtering).

Paul

I may never get this problem figured out. It hasn't been erratic now
for the past day or so. Maybe it was being caused by something like
the microwave oven downstairs or maybe my wife was spewing out some
mental messages of some sort....who knows???

On 12/26/2012 3:42 PM, Gordon wrote:
I may never get this problem figured out. It hasn't been erratic now
for the past day or so. Maybe it was being caused by something like
the microwave oven downstairs or maybe my wife was spewing out some
mental messages of some sort....who knows???

Most wireless devices operate at around 900MHz or 2.4GHz. Yours most
likely is the latter. And cell phones operate at one third of that which
could end up as a harmonic and could cause a problem. And I most
definitely have seen cellular interfere with wireless devices before.
Thus is true of cordless phones, but most of them also operate at 2.4GHz
too.

In the really strange but true category is things like my
brother-in-law. Who can't wear a mechanical or an electronic watch since
his back surgery. As both will stop working in a day or two. If he takes
them off, in a day or two they start working again.

My sister who is married to him, if she walks in my house even without
any electronic devices... my WiFi signal drops out until she leaves.
Talk about a magnetic personality! Anyway changed to a different
manufacture of wireless router and now all is fine. ;-)

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Thunderbird v12
Centrino Core2 Duo T7400 2.16 GHz - 4GB - Windows 7 SP1

On Wed, 26 Dec 2012 16:32:18 -0600, BillW50 wrote:

On 12/26/2012 3:42 PM, Gordon wrote:
I may never get this problem figured out. It hasn't been erratic now
for the past day or so. Maybe it was being caused by something like
the microwave oven downstairs or maybe my wife was spewing out some
mental messages of some sort....who knows???

Most wireless devices operate at around 900MHz or 2.4GHz. Yours most
likely is the latter. And cell phones operate at one third of that which
could end up as a harmonic and could cause a problem. And I most
definitely have seen cellular interfere with wireless devices before.
Thus is true of cordless phones, but most of them also operate at 2.4GHz
too.

In the really strange but true category is things like my
brother-in-law. Who can't wear a mechanical or an electronic watch since
his back surgery. As both will stop working in a day or two. If he takes
them off, in a day or two they start working again.

My sister who is married to him, if she walks in my house even without
any electronic devices... my WiFi signal drops out until she leaves.
Talk about a magnetic personality! Anyway changed to a different
manufacture of wireless router and now all is fine. ;-)

Do these two folks have RFID chips embedded, like some dogs and cats do?

Just teasing...

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Mon, 24 Dec 2012 14:33:15 -0600, Gordon wrote:

I don't think this is a Windows 8 related problem, but maybe someone
here can shed a little light on it. My new HP Pavilion with Windows 8
preinstalled is set up with a Logitech cordless mouse and a Microsoft
Ergonomic wired keyboard. If I get the cordless mouse too close to the
right hand end of my keyboard the mouse gets erratic. The screen's
mouse pointer will stall out a bit then jump to a new location. If I
move the mouse a few inches away from the keyboard it returns to a
fully normal function. Is this a mouse flaw, a Windows 8 compatibility
problem or just a quirk?

I like to place the mouse close enough to the right hand end of the
keyboard to let me use my thumb to click the Enter key then resume
using that same thumb to roll the mouse ball. But, I have to keep the
mouse at least 3 inches away from the keyboard. My thumb isn't long
enough to work well across this distance. ;-) Gordon

A problem I have had is that the *receiver* for my mouse was in a bad
place. The receiver was plugged into a USB port on the back side of the
computer, relatively far from the mouse, and somewhat shaded from it by
the case.

I moved the mouse receiver onto a short USB extender, 12" or 18", and
draped the thing over to one side so that it's closer to the mouse and
not hidden from it. Now everything is consistent again.

This sort of problem has happened to me for s couple of different mice
and a couple of different computers, BTW.

I have even managed to use a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse of
different brands, requiring different receivers, on the same computer
without problems (other than as above). Mixing wired and wireless was
never a problem, unlike in your case.

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)

On Fri, 28 Dec 2012 16:31:32 -0800, "Gene E. Bloch"
wrote:

On Mon, 24 Dec 2012 14:33:15 -0600, Gordon wrote:

I don't think this is a Windows 8 related problem, but maybe someone
here can shed a little light on it. My new HP Pavilion with Windows 8
preinstalled is set up with a Logitech cordless mouse and a Microsoft
Ergonomic wired keyboard. If I get the cordless mouse too close to the
right hand end of my keyboard the mouse gets erratic. The screen's
mouse pointer will stall out a bit then jump to a new location. If I
move the mouse a few inches away from the keyboard it returns to a
fully normal function. Is this a mouse flaw, a Windows 8 compatibility
problem or just a quirk?

I like to place the mouse close enough to the right hand end of the
keyboard to let me use my thumb to click the Enter key then resume
using that same thumb to roll the mouse ball. But, I have to keep the
mouse at least 3 inches away from the keyboard. My thumb isn't long
enough to work well across this distance. ;-) Gordon

A problem I have had is that the *receiver* for my mouse was in a bad
place. The receiver was plugged into a USB port on the back side of the
computer, relatively far from the mouse, and somewhat shaded from it by
the case.

I moved the mouse receiver onto a short USB extender, 12" or 18", and
draped the thing over to one side so that it's closer to the mouse and
not hidden from it. Now everything is consistent again.

I bought a D-Link 7-port powered hub with a 1 metre cable to use to sit
by the Desktop about 2 feet from the keyboard/mouse/left-hand-side
numeric pad* setup. I've also got leads for my cameras plugged in. It
also has 2 higher-amp charging ports for phones or a Kindle. Ten UKP
for the box and 2 for the cable was a bargain, I thought.

This sort of problem has happened to me for s couple of different mice
and a couple of different computers, BTW.

I have even managed to use a wireless keyboard and a wireless mouse of
different brands, requiring different receivers, on the same computer
without problems (other than as above). Mixing wired and wireless was
never a problem, unlike in your case.

Mine are all wireless, Logitech plus Targus pad. Different wireless
systems.

* I like a numeric keypad to the left of the keyboard. The Targus is so
cheap (8 UKP) that it couldn't be true, but it is a fantastic device.
Works well and is much cheaper than the Logitech equivalent.
--
Robin Bignall
Herts, England