Cursor Randomly Freezes or Disappears - Unfixable?!

Quackfish

Quackfish

Member
Joined
Jun 25, 2022
Posts
16
I'm trying to suss out a persistent problem on an HP Envy 15t-as100 CTO laptop with a cursor that randomly freezes. Usually it's brief, but occasionally it will stay frozen. Sometimes it disappears entirely. It can happen at any time - while web surfing, reading mail, opening Word, etc. When the cursor freezers or disappears, a USB mouse can be plugged in get the cursor back.

Here's what I've tried so far (most of these steps I have attempted more than once):

- Completely uninstalled the Synaptics touchpad driver (via control panel) & re-installed it.

- Rolled back the touchpad driver to the Microsoft PS2/mouse one. Uninstalled the Synaptics driver again and set Windows Update to not update drivers.

- Ran Windows Hardware and Devices troubleshooter. This didn't do anything except re-enable the previously disabled auto update prevention during Windows Updates.

- Checked Power Management settings in all applicable drivers to make sure they are correct.

- Disabled Fast Boot.

- Ran: sfc /scannow and DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth. Neither found anything to fix.

- Checked the Windows Events log and found no warnings or errors around the times that the cursor froze or disappeared.

- Scanned for any Malware using Windows Defender, Malwarebytes Pro and SuperAntiSpyware- nothing found.

- When the cursor disappeared in Windows, I booted the PC to a Lubuntu live DVD. The cursor did not freeze or disappear while running Lubuntu. It also worked right away when booting back into Windows, at least for a while.

- Wiped and re-partitioned the hard drive and re-installed Windows 10.

- Updated the BIOS to the latest version. Doing this immediately caused the cursor to disappear and the usual attempts to bring it back did not work, so I reversed the BIOS update back to the original one. After this the system worked without problems, but the cursor issues eventually returned.


A Speccy scan for the notebook can be found here.
 
Quackfish said:
- Wiped and re-partitioned the hard drive and re-installed Windows 10.
Click to expand...
Since you did this, your issue is either a background process or hardware related.

Is Carbonite actively backing up when this happens?

Rich (BB code): 
Current TCP Connections

C:\Program Files (x86)\Carbonite\Carbonite Backup\CarboniteUI.exe (9868)
Local 127.0.0.1:49693: 
ESTABLISHED Remote 127.0.0.1:668 (Querying... )

Is Malwarebytes actively scanning when this happens?

Rich (BB code): 
MBAMService.exe
Process ID: 
4108
User: 
SYSTEM
Domain: 
NT AUTHORITY
Path: 
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes\Anti-Malware\MBAMService.exe
Memory Usage: 
245 MB
Peak Memory Usage: 
414 MB

mbamtray.exe
Process ID: 
9040
User: 
Joan
Domain: 
LAPTOP-JRE15TC
Path: 
C:\Program Files\Malwarebytes\Anti-Malware\mbamtray.exe
Memory Usage: 
39 MB
Peak Memory Usage: 
39 MB
 
Thanks very much for your astute response! Sorry for the late reply...

The issue was present before installing Malwarebytes.

I tried using the machine for a period of time with Carbonite backup disabled and didn't experience any failures but since the problem is so intermittent, that could just be coincidence. When time permits, I will resume testing with Carbonite disabled.

Touchpad > Additional Settings > Pointer Options > Visibility is currently set to Show location of pointer when pressing the CTRL key. I noticed that when the pointer disappears, pressing the Control key - which usually shows the "locating circle" near the middle of the screen - and then continuously pressing at different points on the touchpad will sometimes cause the cursor to re-appear. This may or may not indicate a hardware problem (?)

Another interesting anomaly is that re-installing the 'Intel Chipset Installation Utility and Driver' (from HP.com) & then re-booting the machine appears to reliably force the cursor to re-appear and/or unfreeze. A simple reboot without re-installing the driver has no effect though.
 
Quackfish said:
Touchpad > Additional Settings > Pointer Options > Visibility is currently set to Show location of pointer when pressing the CTRL key. I noticed that when the pointer disappears, pressing the Control key - which usually shows the "locating circle" near the middle of the screen - and then continuously pressing at different points on the touchpad will sometimes cause the cursor to re-appear. This may or may not indicate a hardware problem (?)
Click to expand...
In these settings, is the "hide cursor while typing" checked?

Quackfish said:
- Wiped and re-partitioned the hard drive and re-installed Windows 10.
Click to expand...
When you re-installed, was it a fresh Win 10 ISO or a version from HP?
 
”Hide cursor…” is not checked. Yes, the install was the latest ISO directly from Microsoft, not HP.
 
Have you tried an external mouse?

Sorry about all the questions and if I missed something you've already tried.

I'm throwing ideas out and trying to figure this out by process of elimination.

I'm not saying your issue is with the trackpad but I sincerely hate those trackpads. On my laptop I use a small bluetooth mouse.
 
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No problem on the questions...ask away :) Yes, it does work with an external USB mouse - that's the only way it can be reliably used at the moment. I know what you mean about trackpads, particularly with this era of HPs, but having to always use a mouse with a laptop can be awkward & inconvenient :(.
 
Download Autoruns, please. Unzip the Autoruns64.exe and click on it to open.

Once open and loaded, click save. This will save a file, yourcomputername.arn In your next post, please upload this file.
 
Open Autoruns64 again, please. Under the Everything Tab, uncheck anything that has CCleaner, Glary, HPUpdate, and reboot. Report if your issues go away. You ca n always open Autoruns again and recheck the items you unchecked.
 
I unchecked the items requested and rebooted the laptop. It worked for about 1.5 hrs, then the cursor froze again.
 
I'll be off work tomorrow and will have more time to research this. Someone else may chime in before then but either way, we'll continue to troubleshoot.

Sorry for the delay.
 
Hi,

Uninstall CCleaner and don't use any other utility until we complete our correspondence. You can re-install it after.


Mouse Cursor Freezing <-----Uninstall the Synaptics driver using the method here. Re-install from here.

I've also seen suggested it might be the touchscreen and disabling the touchscreen fixes their cursor locking issue. Let me know if this is the case if the above doesn't work.

Thanks
 
Thanks. I will uninstall CCleaner and Glary Utilities.

I have seen that "Mouse Cursor Freezing" page before. Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see any instructions there for actually uninstalling the Synaptics driver. I generally uninstall it from Device Manager but have also done so via Control Panel. The link you posted for the touchpad driver - 19.5.10.77 Rev. C, is for the latest HP version but that fails to install on the computer. The version just prior to that - 19.3.31.31 Rev. C, installs fine though.

The machine I am dealing with is not a touchpad version.
 
First, restart the computer and tap on F10 during restart, once on BIOS screen, move the mouse cursor around to check if it works normally,

If it does, it would confirm a software issue and you follow the below steps if it doesn't work on its a hardware failure and I would suggest a touchpad replacement.


I recommend you to uninstall any generic synaptic drivers showing up for the touchpad (if available) under hidden devices from the device manager:

  • Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
  • At a command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

  • Type the following command a command prompt, and then press ENTER:
start devmgmt.msc

  • Troubleshoot the devices and drivers in Device Manager.
    NOTE: Click Show hidden devices on the View menu in Device Manager before you can see devices that are not connected to the computer.
  • When you finish troubleshooting, close Device Manager.
  • Type exit at the command prompt.

    Note that when you close the command prompt window, Window clears the devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 variable that you set in step 2 and prevents ghosted devices from being displayed when you click Show hidden devices

SOURCE
CREDIT -Raj1788 From HP
 
Correction: in my last post, I meant to type "The machine I am dealing with is not a TOUCH SCREEN version"...but your probably surmised that :)

On this particular machine, navigating the BIOS menu is only possible via the keyboard, so unfortunately that test is obviously not applicable.

Thanks for re-posting the very useful 'show non present devices' commands. Running those revealed four "ghost" mouse drivers so I uninstalled them. There were no "ghost" touchpad drivers present.

I did uninstall the current driver - Synaptics 19.5.35.74, 11/2/2021. This was previously installed by CCleaner Pro when I ran it's Driver Update function. It seemed to work better than the older HP driver (less freezing) but since it was generic, I uninstalled it & replaced it with the latest HP driver (from 2017) that will work on this PC.
 
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