Sometimes the mouse becomes unusable and I have to restart the computer

Solution 1:

I get this issue on systems that use the onboard graphics. Typically an application, often Chrome when moving the window, will get stuck and the window manager stops responding. When this happens, CTRL-ALT-F1 and run top, and the window manager and the application will both be pegging the CPU. Often I can just kill the application that is causing this issue, then CTRL-ALT-F7 back over to the UI and the mouse works again. If it takes a long time to CTRL-ALT-F1 it's usually a good indicator your CPU is maxed.

Solution 2:

To the excellent comments from my colleagues, can you check what is the status of your memory?.

free -h

The reason is that you can expect random processes to be killed if memory is starving, but also I've seen core parts of the system going mad (or stressed) under heavy swap to disk.

I don't think is a hardware problem, as you can move the mouse, I think the x manager gets a lock and doesn't accept more commands, but we need to get some information to see clearly.

Can you also check the logs to see if the Kernel has killed any process or you have something hang?.

cat /var/log/syslog | grep -i "kill\|hang\|mem"
cat /var/log/kern.log | grep -i "kill\|hang\|mem"

Also check dmesg, is a good place to see problems with the USB devices and the swap:

dmesg -T | grep -i "USB\|swap" | less

Do you see anything extrange in:

less /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Do you use NFS or iSCSI or ZFS? Certain timeouts on network sharings are locking. Also certain hard drive errors, which I doubt as it is happening in two different computers.

When this happens can you go to the terminal with CTRL + ALT + F1 , F2 F3 F4 F5 or F6?.

Have you observed if this happens after the screen is auto locked?. The energy saving sometimes is troublesome. Is your USB receiver connected to the computer or to an external monitor with USB? (energy saving).

Cheers

Solution 3:

I've had a similar problem with a single computer. What fixed it was putting the USB dongle on an extension USB cord (~3 ft.) so that dongle (1) is away from the computer, and (2) has relatively clear path of transmission to the mouse.

I am guessing that the computer generates electrical noise that can interfere with the signal. Also, before moving it, there was a thick wooden table top between the dongle and the mouse. Haven't had any problems since.

I also wonder whether, if both your computers are running at the same, there could be further interference. However, better dongle placement could help with that too.