Blinking and disappearing cursor

[cciortan]

If someone can help me, you will be my hero, because I have been trying to figure out how to solve my problem most of last night, and all this morning. I will try to give as much info as I can. My video card is an Intel 82914G/GV/910GL, which I recently updated to v. 6.14.10.4670. I believe I updated it in August. Previously, I had played Sid Meier's Pirates and Zoo Tycoon 2 on my computer without any problems. It was when I installed another game that was having problems that I chose to update my drivers. For some reason (I can't remember even doing it, to tell you the truth) I had disabled the video driver. Anyway, last night I tried playing Zoo Tycoon 2, and at first it wouldn't open. That's when I discovered the driver had been disabled. I enabled it and the game opened fine, but the mouse cursor is absent unless I am scrolling, in which case it blinks rapidly while it moves. I tested Pirates this morning, and it's the same thing. I should add that I have not played either of these games since updating my drivers (prior to last night and today, I mean). In addition, yesterday afternoon, prior to enabling the driver, I downloaded and used Google Earth. I did NOT have the driver enabled, because I hadn't noticed, but everything seemed to work fine while in the program. AFTER I enabled the driver, the cursor did the same thing in Google Earth as it does in the two games. So it seems that the driver is the key here.

I tried updating my mouse drivers to see if it would help, but it doesn't seem to. I am so sick of fiddling, and I'm afraid I may have unknowingly done something I shouldn't have. All the help pages I've spent the last several hours perusing have been useless to me.

I know I should not need to buy a new graphics card, because everything worked fine before (I specifically tested these two particular games when I got my computer). My computer is a Compaq Presario SR1430NX Pentium 4 running o/s XP home edition with sp2. If you need to know anything else, I will oblige any way I can.

Thanks for your time...

Char

[patio]

Try another mouse...this one isn't wireless by chance is it ? ?

patio.  8-)

[cciortan]

No, it's not wireless, it's a logitech marble mouse. Prior to installing the driver updates, the mouse has never been an issue.

My husband thinks I might have disabled the driver when I was installing his old version of Redneck Rampage for him, which runs through DOS. I honestly can't remember what exactly I did, but I know I did do some configuring in order to get it to run for him.   Darn game, I should've told him I couldn't do it and left it alone!   I'm going to try uninstalling it and see what that does, if anything.

[Raptor]

Can you tell me how you 'disabled' the driver?

[cciortan]

I went to Control Panel, then Performance and Maintenance, then System. Then I clicked the Hardware Tab followed by the Device Manager. I selected the Display Adapters and clicked on the +. That brought up my Intel Chipset. I right-clicked on it and chose disable. Think I did it to get another game or something to run, but I honestly have no recollection.   Sorry! I re-enabled it following the exact same steps.

And now how stupid do I feel?! I can't even figure out how to get rid of Redneck Rampage, because it isn't in Add/Remove Programs, and it doesn't seem to have an uninstall in it's folder. Not that removing it would probably make a difference. Just venting now!

[cciortan]

I maybe should mention, too, that the mouse cursor behaves normally otherwise. No problems online so far, no problems on the desktop or in any folders, etc.

[Raptor]

Redneck Rampage doesn't even come with an uninstaller, just remove it manually.

I doubt it's the games fault that your mouse stopped working.

I think you should reinstall the videocard drivers and mouse drivers.

Most DOS/WIndows 95 games won't run under XP unless you do some very crazy things like you've done now.

You can always try Dosbox, which is freeware and a lot of games run quite well under it.

[patio]

If you disabled the Intel chipset you will need to re-install the motherboard drivers...

patio.  8-)

[2k_dummy]

The simplest thing might be to go into the properties settings and reduce the hardware accelleration. For some programs, having it set to maximum (default) can cause problems with the mouse pointer.

[cciortan]

If you disabled the Intel chipset you will need to re-install the motherboard drivers...

patio.  8-)

My brother removed and re-installed the most recent drivers for the Intel Chipset. Is this the same thing, or is there something else I need to do? Are the motherboard drivers different from the updated drivers from the Intel website (here is where I'm exposing my lack of knowledge more than ever before!)   lol

[cciortan]

The simplest thing might be to go into the properties settings and reduce the hardware accelleration. For some programs, having it set to maximum (default) can cause problems with the mouse pointer.

Okay! You are officially, though indirectly, my hero! lol! I had actually tried this before, and it didn't do anything, but after I saw your post, I thought I'd play around with a bit more. However, I did not reduce the accelleration, but increased it all the way up to full, and surprise surprise! It actually worked! So thanks for the suggestion which got me motivated to play around some more, or who knows if I ever would have tried that again.

And how freakin' annoying is it that it was something so stupidly simple!!!!!!  

Thanks to EVERYONE who took the time to post suggestions for me. This is a great forum, 'cause goodness knows, it's pretty darn tough to get a good answer from the actual makers of the software and hardware people have problems with. So thank you, thank you, thank you, all you great techies, you!