Bits, bytes and beauty

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Not all computer problems are software problems

For the last week the quality of my computing experience was severely degraded. My scroll wheel stopped scrolling. The mouse was working perfectly fine otherwise, including the button in the scroll wheel.

Naturally, I blamed software. I went through the "Keyboard and Mouse" settings multiple times. I tried installing the Logitech Control Center even though I hadn't needed it earlier. Nothing worked.

Until I tried the mouse in another computer, where scrolling also didn't work. It was a hardware problem after all. Opening up the mouse, I was greeted with bits of hairy dust sticking to the grease that makes the wheel turn smooth. After removing all the dust and admiring the inner workings I closed it again and tried it out. Didn't work.
Open it up again. Notice a tiny speck of dirt, smack in the middle of the eye that catches light from a LED on the other side of the wheel's spokes. Removed the speck and now everything works!

It's the little things that bring me happiness. I can scroll again.