[jrafter]

My mouse pointer keeps jumping to random places on the screen, and doing so with increased frequency, making it harder and harder to control whatever I'm doing. I've checked the system preferences; I have no installed hacks or software that should be conflicting with the mouse driver.

Any idea of what could be causing this? Any suggestions for a fix would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

John

17" iMac G4, OS 10.3.8

[cla]

Tried a different mouse?
Tried a different USB port?
Tried the mouse on different computer?
Tried the mouse booting from the system CD?

I had the exact same problem a couple of weeks ago.
I solved it by removing the hair stuck in the infrared sensor underneath the mouse. :>

[Longshanks]

Try a different mouse pad. I've had the same problem when using an optical mouse on one of those hard mouse pads.

[Big Mac]

If you're using a third party wheel mouse, you may be having the same problem described in this thread. If it's an Apple Pro Mouse, try connecting it to a different Mac to see if it's defective.

[jrafter]

Thank you all for the many practical suggestions. I started with the easiest one, and that seems to have done the trick. I reversed USB ports, and everything is working fine!

John