How come my cursor will only work in Safe Mode?

[Maraya1969]

Also can I add a program in safe mode? I want to be able to access the internet but I will have to add my Verison air card program and run it.

(This is my old lap top. My new one is at HP being fixed for heating up too much....free of charge)

The cursor in regular mode will move in jerks for a short time and then stop all together. In safe mode it works perfectly.

Thanks in advance.

Maraya

[canetoad]

1. First thought

There is a whole pile of useless programs and/or services running when you boot normally and have slowed the laptop down to almost unusable. In safe mode, these parasites are not loaded, thus the resources are free.

Boot the machine normally and before you start any programs, right click in the task bar, select Task Manager and select the processes tab. Then let us know how many running processes. IMO 25 - 35 is about right.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

2. You can also look at your Startup list

Click Start->Run and type in "msconfig" (without the quotes). When the System Configuration tool opens, click on the Startup tab.

If there are a lot of entries in your Startup list, one of those could be killing your mouse cursor. Try unchecking all of them and rebooting the computer (into regular mode). If your cursor works, then you know it's a Startup item that's causing the problem. If that's the case, add back a few of the Startup items at a time until you figure out which item is causing the problem.

[Maraya1969]

3. I can do this in safe mode? Because I can't in regular mode unless

there are keys that I can type to perform the function.

Thanks to both of you for your answers. I have been sans computer since my regular one was at HP for the last 3 weeks and I could only get online if I went over to my mom's house. The computer with the cursor problems is my old one that I was trying to use.