Laser mouse acting weird

[Stg-Flame]

I've been using a Logitech G500 for about two or three years now and I believe it may be dying. When I move the mouse slowly, the cursor acts like there is a barrier of sorts and won't travel any further in the direction I'm moving the cursor or it will randomly go a different direction (usually the opposite direction). When I move the mouse fast (ie. shake it around), it moves just fine, but when I'm trying to do precision aiming in a game or just move my mouse across the screen to click something specific, it goes haywire.

I normally don't use a mouse pad because it was pretty uncomfortable and my desk top is starting to show a bit of wear, but after trying three different mouse pads and two blank pieces of paper (one solid white one solid black), I've concluded it's most likely not the surface of my desk causing this. The only reason I say most likely is because I have very inconsistent results when trying the mouse on different parts of my desk, but all mouse pads/paper caused erratic mouse movements.

Any ideas as to what's causing this? It's making most games pretty difficult to play since a few of them are survival FPS games.

 

[Legios]

Have you gotten debris up in the laser well? Sometimes that blocks the laser making it act in the manner you are describing. Hair, lint, mouse fuzz.

 

[Cerb]

Assuming the sensor and laser are clear...

If your pads are cloth, that's not abnormal for a laser mouse, and the G500 is among the twitchier ones. If you don't use super high DPI, get a decent non-laser mouse, and call it a day. Or, try a flat mouse pad.

 

[Stg-Flame]

My mouse pad is one of those metal ones. I stopped using it because the surface feels like very fine sand paper and it was starting to scratch the underside of my mouse.

As for debris in the laser well, I didn't even think about that. After some compressed air, it seems to be working fine now. Hopefully that's what was wrong with it.

Thanks a lot for the information.