Troubleshooting Mouse Lag: My Journey Towards a Smooth Experience

Dealing with technology can often feel like an uphill battle, especially when you’re faced with frustrating performance issues. Recently, I encountered a significant mouse lag problem on my new P51 ThinkPad, and after dedicating over 50 hours to diagnosing the issue, I’ve made some progress—and I’m hoping to discover further solutions.

The primary challenge I faced was pronounced mouse lag while navigating Flash-based slides in Chrome. This was particularly troubling as my work heavily relies on interacting with these slides. To tackle the problem, I went through a comprehensive troubleshooting process. This included uninstalling and reinstalling all drivers and applications, as well as performing a complete system restore and clean installation. Unfortunately, despite my efforts, the issue persisted.

One interesting development occurred when I decided to remove Cortana from my system. Many users had suggested that this virtual assistant could be the culprit behind the lag, and to my surprise, I experienced an immediate improvement—around 75% of the mouse stuttering was resolved. However, despite this success, I still encountered some lag, particularly every 3-5 seconds while interacting with the Flash slides.

I’ve made observations that could lead to further insight: reducing the size of the window or scaling down the slides alleviated much of the stuttering, but this is hardly a viable long-term solution when visibility is paramount for my work.

Now, I’m reaching out to the community for help. What additional methods or tweaks should I explore to tackle the remaining 25% of this mouse lag? Your insights and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Update: I genuinely appreciate all the suggestions I’ve received thus far. I’ve experimented with nearly every one, but the problem persists. What’s particularly noteworthy is that the mouse operates flawlessly when outside the Flash slides, but the moment it transitions onto them, the stuttering begins. Any further ideas on how to resolve this would be immensely helpful!