Does your mouse seem like it is sticking and not responding to your hand movements? Try putting a piece of plain paper under the mouse. If the mouse now responds to your hand movements, the solution is to get a new surface for your mouse to move on. The older surface just wore down to something so smooth that there is no irregularity in the surface for the mouse to interact with. The surface that mouse is on needs to have sufficient irregularity in color, and the fibers in plain paper seem to work. Even a brown shipping envelop works. An extremely effective mouse pad is a smooth metal plate with a dense pattern of small, white dots all over a steel grey background.

Or, the surface that you’re working on has a lot of sludge on it and needs to be washed down. The bottom of most mouse devices has a soft plastic or rubber footing that wears off onto the surface below the mouse, or it catches dust and grinds it into the surface that eventually looks like black smudges on the surface. Just keeping that surface and the bottom of the mouse clean may be all that is needed.

John R Carter Sr