Mouse disapears then windows crashes/freezes

[gaza1994]

Hi Folks,
I have this weird problem,
I can be using my PC for 30 mins to an hour (varies all the time, so i dont think its time problem) but my cursor seems to disappear then windows freezes, no BSOD nothing, just cant do anything and doesnt respond to any clicks / keyboard input, my only option is to hard reset!

Any idea why this would be happening?

 

[MilesAhead]

Usually that kind of thing is a hardware issue. I had a couple of after market network cards do that in a couple of different machines. When I booted cold everything was perfect for 20 to 45 minutes. Then hard lock just as you described. I swapped the network card for a different model(more expensive) and the problem disappeared.

Have you changed any hardware recently? Purchased a new wired mouse or keyboard? Any PCI cards?
Usually what a technician will do is open up the box and spray different components with compressed air to see if it starts working when the heat is dissipated. Trouble is the lockup is so sudden I doubt the system will write to any log files etc..

 

[gaza1994]

Usually that kind of thing is a hardware issue. I had a couple of after market network cards do that in a couple of different machines. When I booted cold everything was perfect for 20 to 45 minutes. Then hard lock just as you described. I swapped the network card for a different model(more expensive) and the problem disappeared.

Have you changed any hardware recently? Purchased a new wired mouse or keyboard? Any PCI cards?
Usually what a technician will do is open up the box and spray different components with compressed air to see if it starts working when the heat is dissipated. Trouble is the lockup is so sudden I doubt the system will write to any log files etc..

Only new things is
a new 200mm fan for the top of the case

and i bought a replacement mouse which is exactly the same one i had before (sad i know but i really liked that mouse) - it is a Roccat Kone XTD - never had any issues like this before.

I'm currently booted into safe mode and its not crashed yet, so I'm possibly thinking its driver related... but its going to be really difficult to solve which one is doing it when there is no error log entry for it.

 

[MilesAhead]

I'm currently booted into safe mode and its not crashed yet, so I'm possibly thinking its driver related... but its going to be really difficult to solve which one is doing it when there is no error log entry for it.

If it does not have an issue in safe mode I think my next move would be to let it sit for awhile to chill. Then boot it, log in and make a note of the time. Then leave it idle. When it locks up the time of the lockup should be shown in the tray clock. If it is less than an hour I would still bet on a hardware issue.

Other than that all I can suggest is use a bunch of temperature monitoring utilities that write logs every so often. See if you can get a clue what the issue is that way.

Edit: Also if you have a "known good" mouse lying around it might not hurt to change to that one during the idle lockup experiment. If I remember right when my machine locked up the mouse cursor was still sitting there on screen, not invisible.

 

[gaza1994]

I'm currently booted into safe mode and its not crashed yet, so I'm possibly thinking its driver related... but its going to be really difficult to solve which one is doing it when there is no error log entry for it.

If it does not have an issue in safe mode I think my next move would be to let it sit for awhile to chill. Then boot it, log in and make a note of the time. Then leave it idle. When it locks up the time of the lockup should be shown in the tray clock. If it is less than an hour I would still bet on a hardware issue.

Other than that all I can suggest is use a bunch of temperature monitoring utilities that write logs every so often. See if you can get a clue what the issue is that way.

I've currently got ProcMon running on one of my monitors, if it crashes atleast i'll get an idea as to what was last accessed / run might give me a bit more of a clue as to what is causing this problem,