Mouse picky about surface

I have a Dell Inspiron 1150 laptop and a small USB optical mouse made
by GE. Since some time ago, the mouse stopped moving smoothly. I tried
many surfaces. Two can make it work well: on the small surfaces where
my wrists rest while I type on the laptop (below keyboard, to the left
and right of the touch pad), and on a piece of paper on my desk. It
doesn't move well on these surfaces:

1. Not moving at all: wood desk (surface very smooth and shiny), a
plastic mouse pad where the mouse of another computer uses perfectly,
the LCD screen of this laptop;

2. Moving sluggishly: a hard- or soft-cover of a book, gritty surface
of a school notebook's cover, the back of the LCD screen i.e. laptop
cover (yes I tried it!);

3. Sluggish and jumpy: smooth and shiny surface of a school notebook
cover where micky mice are printed.

What can I conclude about a good surface for this mouse?

Yong Huang

For an optical mouse, the best surface has a single color and a matte
(non-shiny) finish. I use a cheap dull green mouse pad with mine.

When I first installed my optical mouse, the cursor occasionally jumped like
crazy all over the screen. My mouse pad at the time was a black-and-white
Gateway, I concluded that the optical mouse was sensitive to drastic color
changes. And why not? After all, it is OPTICAL... Ben Myers

On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:53:06 -0700 (PDT), Yong Huang <> wrote:

>I have a Dell Inspiron 1150 laptop and a small USB optical mouse made
>by GE. Since some time ago, the mouse stopped moving smoothly. I tried
>many surfaces. Two can make it work well: on the small surfaces where
>my wrists rest while I type on the laptop (below keyboard, to the left
>and right of the touch pad), and on a piece of paper on my desk. It
>doesn't move well on these surfaces:
>
>1. Not moving at all: wood desk (surface very smooth and shiny), a
>plastic mouse pad where the mouse of another computer uses perfectly,
>the LCD screen of this laptop;
>
>2. Moving sluggishly: a hard- or soft-cover of a book, gritty surface
>of a school notebook's cover, the back of the LCD screen i.e. laptop
>cover (yes I tried it!);
>
>3. Sluggish and jumpy: smooth and shiny surface of a school notebook
>cover where micky mice are printed.
>
>What can I conclude about a good surface for this mouse?
>
>Yong Huang