Little problem with a computer...

[greypanther]

A friend is having a problem with her PC, which is odd. She is turning it on, it seems to boot, but leaves her with a square in the middle with an arrow moving around uncontrollably. My first though was a faulty mouse, but thought I would ask those far more tech savvy than me here, before suggesting that. I haven't seen it myself, just her description.

She is 80 and even less tech savvy than me, though does a lot better than most 80 year olds.

[burger1]

Unplug extra stuff from usb ports. Might be a temporary issued caused by a windows update. A one time issue. Can even unplug the mouse if you think that's the issue. Can also try booting with just the mouse and no keyboard. On the windows log in screen there's a symbol that looks like a wheel chair (accessibility options) you can click on it and enable the on screen keyboard and type with the mouse.

Unplug pc, press power button a few times, wait a bit then plug pc back in and try to boot.

The bios screen post? If she boots to the bios does it display normally?

Try booting with no mouse?

If you think it's a windows issue then she can make a windows install usb and boot to it and do a repair. The built in repair never seems to work vs the usb repair.

Can start the pc and wait a bit then press down the power button to turn off the pc. After doing this 3 or 4 times you should get the windows recovery menu. Try booting in safe mode from the menu. Driver issue?

[Chips]

not overly clear - do you mean it gets to load into windows, and while on the desktop the mouse is moving? Or the mouse isn't moving, but there's a box on the desktop with something akin to a cursor moving around in it? Or... it's hard to understand what the meaning is.

So a simplest assumption is the cursor is just moving on the desktop by itself - nothing rapid, just a sort of odd tiny walk movement.

Is it an optical mouse (not track and ball) and is it on a surface such as wood or shiny yet uneven? If so, can you try putting it on a mouse mat and see if that resolves the issue? Can you take along a spare mouse and give that a go? If its already on a mouse mat, try give it a clean or use another if you can take one along. Also as mentioned, when it's jumping around - unplug mouse, does it stop?

I've had a wandering cursor due to surface/mouse combo, hence why asking to rule that out. However, take a pic and try upload if we're completely misunderstanding.

If not even booting into windows, then...

[matthewfarmery]

Also what version of windows is the PC running? is this still an issue? by the sounds of it could it be the login screen she is seeing and a faulty mouse? otherwise, a screenshot or video would help a lot.