Mouse Cursor Flickering on Windows 10

Anonymous
2019-08-02T14:10:38+00:00

This is a really annoying problem. 

Two things seem to be happening. First is the mouse cursor is flickering. It's as if it's having an anxiety attack. The flicker can also interfere when trying to click on icons, although most of the clicking feature seem to work okay most of the time.

The second thing I noticed is that down at the bottom of the screen is a big circle that has an arrow in it. This arrow flickers in rhythm with the cursor. 

I have tried every suggestion I can find on the internet, including those from this forum. I've deleted device drivers for both the mouse and video card and the intel driver, changed screen resolution, tried changing mouse settings, tried changing the settings of my video drivers,  I tried changing the performance settings, I changed the boot up settings in my Bios. I tried starting up without my usual start up programs. Nothing stopped the flickering.

I use a USB mouse, so I tried different USB ports. I also tried a wireless mouse. The flicker did not stop in either case. I think it's a problem with the Windows update. I had this problem some months back, but it stopped. Then I updated a few days ago and the mouse flickering started up again.

I did notice that while in my Bios the cursor did not flicker. While in Windows 10, as I am now the mouse cursor does flicker.

Help.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Performance and system failures

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Anonymous
2019-08-11T14:34:07+00:00

Solved! (I think...)

I spent hours yesterday trying to find the solution to this problem, trying stuff at random and search the internet for ideas. Nothing worked, but I was reading about one person who said his touch pad was causing his flickering problem. I don't have a touch pad, but I do have a touch monitor. In fact I have two monitors, one touch and one is not, which may or may not having anything to do with it.

Anyway, the touch screen monitor was the problem. The first way to solve this, in my situation, was to go to Device Manager > Human Interface Devices > HID-compliant touch screen, right click and disable the device. This worked immediately.

However, as I realized later, the far easier solution is to reach around to the back of the monitor and unplug the usb cord that connects the monitor's touch screen functionalities to the computer. This too caused the flickering mouse cursor to stop. 

Very frustrating problem if you don't know the solution. But when you do it is easy. Hope this helps someone.

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-06-30T12:00:24+00:00

    I am an unsophisticated laptop user. And got lost with all of the technical talk.  After reading a lot of the notes, here is what I did to solve the problem.  Disabled the touch screen in Device Manager. (This stopped the flickering and "bubble.") Disconnect laptop from power and attached monitor. Turn-off using power button - not from the Start icon. Power-up laptop. Restore touch screen function in Device Manager. Viola!

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-07-11T10:04:12+00:00

    Thank you Jim, I've also been struggling with this for a while now. Solved my problem too. Microsoft isn't doing a good job here, so many nagging problems with Windows10 and users are left in the lurch, having to figure out solutions on their own. I'm using a Touchscreen Laptop with external monitors (non-touch), it's sad that I had to sacrifice the touch capability on my screen to keep it running smoothly. Could Microsoft at least release a patch, now that the users have root caused this and told them the issue?

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-07-13T00:09:35+00:00

    Hi, I use MS Surface Pro 4 with another non touch screen monitor attached to it. I also found the same issue cropping up on my screen, i.e. flickering mouse cursor with appearance of a circle on the bottom right corner of my screen. Sometimes that circle would shift to top right of the screen. This was very annoying as the circle and mouse cursor both start flickering together and pointing the mouse cursor became a hassle.

    Initially i thought it's some kind of a bug and so i installed couple of anti malware software programs like malwarebytes, kaspersky etc but that would not do the trick. The problem would not go away. what worked for me temporarily and permanently was as follows.

    1. Restart the computer. Although it worked only few times as the flickering started again in few days
    2. Check the system for suspected malware and spyware. I did that and found no problem. although it did not solve the problem.
    3. Permanent Solution: Thanks to Jimclay75051, i then disabled touch screen driver of SurfacePro4 and that did the trick. The circle disappeared and flickering stopped for good. Although it stopped touch screen functionality of my SurfacePro4, i am okay with it since i hardly use touch screen. So if you could live without touch screen function of your monitor or SurfacePro device, this is likely to resolve your flickering and annoying circle appearance problem for good. Do the following to rid this problem.

    Windows10 Users: Press (Windows+X) to Launch Device manager, once there, click on Human Interface Devices, you shall get several drop-down devices in this category...GoTo HID-Compliant Touch Screen ( you may find two of these, select the first one), Right Click on that and Select "Disable the Device". This should fix this problem. Short Path given below.

    Device Manager-->Human Interface Devices-->HID-Compliant Touch Screen-->(Right Click)-->Disable the Device

    Hope this works for you.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-07-19T07:10:36+00:00

    Hello Everyone, 

    Glad most of you have resolved your issues. 

    I have problem so very similar to the main question, however, the computer with the problems is not a touch screen at all, not using any touch screen drivers or monitor to my knowledge. I'm a bit paranoid and I know I can uninstall drivers and reinstall. I'm more worried about a program causing this maliciously, or an allowed program doing something to cause this. It does seem as if it's in a tablet mode of some sort (IT IS NOT.. just to clarify). I can sort of move based on the classic SHIFT+[2,4,8,6] Arrows or my standard arrow keys if pressed in a fast fashion. If I hit shift or control it stops shaking both cursors when I am typing. That's when I see the most movement and inability to move. It's like its using a screen vector map positioning software piece with a key logger but I don't know what to look for. Am I hyper paranoid, but I do use Remote Desktop clients (some of the more popular ones for work and scoring my brownie points from PC assists :)

    I'm a MS Pro so I know this Is silly, but does any one know what I can run from cmd besides sfc /scannow or a parameterized version of SFC Scan  (unless you know what my parameters should be right now I can't even navigate hardly unless I turn web access of and then it suddenly went away which almost leads me to believe I have an invisible friend. I also noticed a folder named something like BDSF?_%System Name% (ill have to verify that first part I don't think those are exact acronymn letters but I did notice Program in my startup programs that's a sign of something eerie or sinister. I'm typing from a different networks' device. I'm offline. But any advice here. Thanks

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