New mouse broke screensaver

October 13, 2006 3:33 PM

My new Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 5000 broke my screensaver. Help?

All the details: eMachines T6522 Media Center PC w/TV tuner card, remote, etc. This mouse replaced a wired el cheapo MS Intellimouse which did not exhibit this issue. Since installation, screen saver or power save mode will not activate (previews fine).

Googling the issue turned up a few leads. A MS KB article talked about disabling ehtray and a DVD process. An online suggestion was to plug the USB connector into a green USB-to-PS2 connector (didn't work--mouse not recognized).

Called MS support and they had me disable the stuff listed in the KB article. That made the screensaver work. It also disabled the Media Center remote control. And the ehtray.exe process restarts if Media Center is started via the Start menu, which again breaks the screensaver.

Anyone else have this problem and fix it?

posted by AstroGuy to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Did you reboot after trying the usb-ps2 adapter? ps2 is not plug and play the way usb is. I haven't experienced this problem myself, but just the first thought that came to mind.
posted by utsutsu at 5:11 PM on October 13, 2006

Yes, I rebooted.
posted by AstroGuy at 5:13 PM on October 13, 2006

What's likely happening is your computer speakers are too close to the wireless receiver. Speakers can emit EM interference which makes the receiver think you're moving the mouse (sometimes manifests as the cursor wiggling). As a result the screen saver never engages (cause, it thinks you're either typing or mousing). Move the receiver or the speakers so they're not near each other anymore, and see if that works.
posted by drmarcj at 5:21 PM on October 13, 2006

Well, if I disable ehtray.exe as suggested by MS, the screensaver works, so that would discount the speaker idea.
posted by AstroGuy at 6:21 PM on October 13, 2006

Why not just rename ehtray.exe to ehtray.old or something like that so it can't start?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:50 PM on October 13, 2006

That would kind of defeat the purpose crash. I don't want to lose the functionality of my remote.
posted by AstroGuy at 6:45 AM on October 14, 2006

Return the mouse and try another.
posted by Roger Dodger at 9:46 AM on October 14, 2006

Did you install any drivers for the mouse? Did you need to? I've found that windows generally detects most mouse/keyboards fine without bothering to install the stupid software that comes with them that I really don't need.
posted by antifuse at 2:56 AM on October 16, 2006

I installed the Intellipoint 5.5 drivers that came with the mouse. I'll try removing this and running the mouse without.
posted by AstroGuy at 8:27 AM on October 16, 2006