Are you using the same mouse pad with both rigs or have you tried different mouse pads? I ask because you may be using different pads between the two rigs... (the one that skips and the one that works).

Same pad on both, Ulti-Mat Breathe X4. Had this pad for ages. Never had problems with it on Win XP.

Wondering if anyone has a deeper understanding of Windows 7 mouse input, if there's something funky going on in there. I have done the acceleration fix for Win7.

Some folks here believe that if you disable core parking on Win 7 it makes a difference. I have not done this myself on Win 7 with my new machine, but there is another thread here that talks about this.

Here is the link that talked about disabling core parking

http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=1861804

Cakewalk is an audio program that needs real-time behavior and waking up a parked core was problematic for audio processing (evidently)

I would also check your DPC latency while idle and see if you have any spikes from something. I had a sound card that was causing strange behavior which was noticeable via how the mouse felt. Once I found an updated driver the problem went away.

DPC Latency Checker and explanation of how to use it is here:

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

DPC Latency Checker shows no spikes, below 500 all the time. Absolute maximum of 333.

About Core Parking
"It only applies to Windows 7 X64 and X32 and only in systems using more than 2 physicial CPU's and/or more than 2 "logical" cores - ie: Core i7's."

I have i5, so does that even concern me?

pretty much, yes

OK, disabled core parking, no effect. Still skipping.

Not sure if related, but my motherboard makes a very slight high pitched noise when the computer is completely idle. Sitting on desktop or a browser open etc. If I open a video file, audio file or even scroll down on a web page it removes the noise.

I suspect it's just some inductors tho...

Okay, I apologize in advance but bear with me here. It may seem like I am asking something obvious and it may go nowhere but lets chase this and see if it leads anywhere...

How are you producing the "skipping" you are seeing? Is it in a certain game? Please be precise so we can try and help.

As an example when I had the DPC latency issue with the sound card driver (discussed above). I would notice in long slow sweeps across my mouse pad that the motion on the screen seemed to stick and then jump at times. This didn't really happen much without the additional load of a game running.

You said:

"as in either stop moving completely or move to a different direction than they're supposed to."

Assuming the game is running at a decent FPS and you are not doing something like encoding video in the background... I've only seen the stop moving completely issue or "sticking" as I would call it in a failing mouse and with the DPC problem. The "sticking" would correspond to the high DPC latency spikes. Moving in a different direction happened to me with a Xai only when the lens was dirty. My XAI is extremely sensitive to foreign debris on the lens and I needed to use a can of compressed air and blow it out on a regular basis when I was using it. I have never used the other mouse you mentioned so I can't speak to that mouse. With the xai's dirty lens, I couldn't even see things on the lens, but the blowing out caused the problem to go away until the next time dust got on the lens...

The problem with this is, it seems to be computer specific for you which really has me puzzled. If it is a dirty lens issue it should be happening on both computers...

Additionally how are you overdriving your USB driver, are you using the XAI setting or some different usb driver installed? Exactly which win 7 acceleration fix did you use?

It happens in all games, and I am testing it in CPMA with raw mouse input, so there is nothing interfering with the input. Negative acceleration cannot occur to my knowledge in this setup, since it doesn't use the "move from the center and reset each frame" -system.

It is the "malfuction" thing that Sujoy was talking about in his mouse benchmark. So in effect the mouse just doesn't seem to get enough juice from the USB and can't keep up with the speed. As in can't take pictures fast enough and thus doesn't know which way the movement is occurring because there is no familiar aspects of two consecutive frames the sensor captures.

But a mouse rate checker shows that I get a solid 1000hz.

The mouse works perfectly in every other way, slow moves and even relatively fast moves work flawlessly, it's only when I start to move really fast that it occurs.

To give you an idea on the speed at which it occurs, it's along the lines of the fast flicks I do at the end of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-DdbLqm_Ao

The DCP latency checker showed no spikes whatsoever and I never have anything happening on the background when I play.

This is the mouse acceleration fix: http://donewmouseaccel.blogspot.com/2010/03/m...n-fix.html

I used both an USB rate changer and I also have the XAI rate set to 1000.

what mainboard do you use, usb 1, 2 or 3? i heard of people having all kinds of problems with usb3. do you have anything else running on usb, like a soundcard or a hdd?

Is it happening in all games? Cause it could be negative acceleration due to hitting the border of the desktop (some older/badly programmed games reset the pointer x amount of times to the center of the desktop and fetch the travelled distance, if you move it fast enough to hit the border ---> neg accell).

It feels similar to a slight skipping.

Except that mew isn't a retard and with such a low sens he HAS to have experienced it before, even for the sake of experiencing it - thus know about that.

All games, and more specifically in CPMA with raw mouse input, so it can't be related to what you're saying.

mew it appears as if you have done things correctly and are testing in a way that is repeatable. Unfortunately with what you have done you have gotten past what I know could easily cause these sorts of issues.

Since it is both mice, on the machine is it possible you have a low voltage or some problem with the USB ports on the motherboard you are using?

I'm stumped, when that happens I start trying to broaden my search and the only thing we haven't gone into yet is hardware itself, specifically what motherboard are you using?

If you tell us that and someone else has the same mobo maybe they can try and repeat your tests. Hell, if someone would be willing to test it and only have the same mobo as you, I might be willing to ship them my xai assuming someone pays shipping... You have me curious enough and since I don't use my xai anymore someone would get a free mouse out of the deal...

Any way to try XP on your current rig? (like plug in some old HDD and install XP on it with just the absolutely necessary drivers, games like CPMA are portable so you wouldn't need to install anything else)

From what I understood you had no issues with XP on your other rig but haven't tried on this one, right?

Also "slight high pitched noise" is normal, it can be your GPU/mobo/PSU/whatever (could even be the monitor, be it CRT/LCD) but there are far too many things that can make such noise these days, don't worry about it unless it's bothering you (and a RMA would most likely not help, unless you're lucky)

Another thing, you said "DPC Latency Checker shows no spikes, below 500 all the time. Absolute maximum of 333." But what was the average and when did the 333 spike occur? If you get 333 on the desktop while just moving the mouse then there's something wrong.

On a good mobo with no issue whatsoever you should get like 2µs when idling in XP (not moving the mouse) and a bit more up to 50-60µs on vista/7. Moving the mouse should increase that (the higher the mouse hz the more it should rise) but not THAT much unless your CPU is being hammered.

One thing you can try is disabling HPET (High Precision Event Timer) in the bios, it should greatly lower DPC latency.
In theory it shouldn't matter for people not doing sound processing/recording but it doesn't hurt to disable it either so give it a shot if you can.

And finally, what motherboard do you have and do you have a soundcard (usb or internal)?

or this http://www.lucashale.com/timer-resolution/

Should have similiar effect.
I didn't try turning off HPET, as i couldn't find it in my bios.

Didn't know that one.

And some boards don't let you turn HPET off at all (I think you can't on the new Asus Sabertooth for example)
Gigabyte always does I think, but with other manufacturers it might be hit and miss. Not that it should matter much for most people anyway.

The DCP Latency Checker usually shows a spike close to 300 when i start it up and it hovers around 100 and 200 in the desktop idle without any major programs on. Is that above normal?

It is around 150-210 or so when irc and browser is on.

And for some reason, it stayed around 80-120 when playing CPMA (had it windowed to check) Lowering mouse hz brought it down slightly. Didn't affect skipping.

I had ACPI HPET Table [disabled] in BIOS.

My motherboard is AsRock H55DE3, internal sound card.

Only USB devices are keyboard, mouse and a printer which is always off.

are you using this

"Power eSATA/USB connector

The powered eSATA/USB connector can not only support USB device, but also eSATA devices without additional power source. It is compatible with both eSATA and USB interfaces."

to connect your mouse and keyboard?

Well that's fairly high but Asrock motherboards aren't exactly high-end stuff so I'd bet it's perfectly normal.
It's possible that Asrock mobos have dodgy USB controllers too though, which could cause the skipping, but since this other guy says he has this on a Gigabyte board I'm not too sure.
Got any USB 3.0 ports? & if yes, are you using them? (you shouldn't for mice and keyboards)

& did you have HPET ON before? and does it make any difference at all? (in theory, it should be ON in Vista/7 unless latency is critical)

This is strange and worrying though, this thread + the other about Sandy Bridge mobos and their unstable polling rate make me really hesitate to upgrade my rig since I'm not really lacking juice yet to run my games.

This is strange and worrying though, this thread + the other about Sandy Bridge mobos and their unstable polling rate make me really hesitate to upgrade my rig since I'm not really lacking juice yet to run my games.

Same here :/

I'm really unwilling to change to win7, especially seeing how many people have issues with accel (see markc win7 mouse accel thread)

I don't have USB 3.0 ports that I know of.

HPET was disabled in BIOS when i went to disable it, i have never touched it before so it was off by default.

What could I disable that would lower the DPC latency without affecting performance in games. I literally only play games, watch movies and surf the web on this machine. Sound can be sacrificed.

Well I don't really think that you should worry too much about latency since it is most likely the USB causing latency issues rather than the latency causing USB issues, if you see what I mean.

Latency shouldn't really matter for people not doing professional audio stuff but I'd still expect a modern rig with a decent CPU etc to have a nice and solid latency.

Anyway you can try turning HPET ON but I frankly doubt it will make any difference regarding the issue at hand.

I've been trying to google about your mobo a bit but couldn't find much (and yes you're right it doesn't have any USB3 ports).

As some other people have said... you can try turning the integrated soundcard off (can do it in Windows device manager or in the bios, doesn't really matter), and also the network card.

Both are a common cause of high latency (because of drivers, not because they are faulty in any way).

If any of these two makes a difference, you should try different drivers.
Windows 7 has its own drivers for these things, but you can replace them with official drivers easily if you haven't already. If you have, then uninstall those drivers and let Windows handle these devices on its own.

As mentioned above, we want to know what others things you have plugged into the USB ports...

i have also mouseskips on my machine

i5 - 750
4gb ram
nvidia 250gts
motherboard: gigabyte p55 ud3
win 7 ultimate
more highsenser : 8 cm/360°

mice : deathadder 3g and intelli 1.1

polling rate(actually 500) is unstable here sometimes it moves to 600/700 and often 10 or 20 about the 500

Could you check your DPC Latency with this checker? http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

arround 200 , highest 369

Okay on win 7 my DPC latency on my Asus Sabertooth P67 is around 55-60 with max hitting 85 during startup. If I enable certain features in my sound driver it jumps but only to a max of 150. When I had strange mouse issues I was seeing spikes (on my older rig) of the DPC latency upwards of 1000. My problem was a really screwed up sound driver at that time and it was causing my mouse issue.

To confirm that sound is not related you could disable the sound card in the bios and uninstall the driver. However I really doubt this is your issue. It is honestly a long shot.

just disabled sound in the bios and uninstalled the audio driver, still skippings here...

now the mistery thing.. yesterday i tested the 32 er screen of my bro via HDMI and i had no skips! back on my 22 er screen via DVI i still get skips .... is that logical?

greetz

An unlikely addition to this mystery. I acquired the Razer Spectre Starcraft II mouse, and... it doesn't seem to skip.

I spent a good 30 minutes waving it around like a mad man and I was unable to make it skip.

Steelseries XAI I am always able to skip whenever I try. This is indeed both puzzling and a relief. Unfortunately the Spectre sensor has a few anomalies that are annoying but I'll see if I'm able to live with them.

I could understand regarding the Xai since laser sensors can have strange issues, but making the mx300 skip? that doesn't sound right.

Anyway, I hope you like the shape etc of your new mouse if it's indeed working fine :)

Indeed, making the mx300 skip was the part that really made me suspect there is something wrong with the computer. But also the fact that I was never able to skip the XAI on my old pc which had Win XP.