Windows – Mouse Icon Distorted on Secondary Display

cursormousemultiple-monitorswindowswindows 7

I have a strange issue with a dual monitor, extended desktop setup where the mouse is always fine on the primary monitor, but sometimes when I move to the secondary display the icon becomes garbled and distorted (sometimes it just looks like a vertical line, instead of a pointer). If I move the mouse back and forth rapidly between primary and secondary displays the level of "garbledness" of the icon will change and sometimes go away completely. If I switch the display settings and set it to "Duplicate Monitor 1" then I end up with a garbled icon on the primary display and an accurate one on the secondary. Very annoying.

Computer is Windows 7 Ultimate with an HD5780 and the newest video drivers. Monitors are two Dell 24" displays connected via DVI cables. I have also tried VGA cables.

Best Answer

The problem is unfortunately an old bug with ATI cards under some multi-monitor setups that is being reported since at least 2009. I experienced it with an HD 4770. It was particularly recurring when I would host a virtual machine in fullscreen mode on my secondary monitor. But would also happen without it when I moved between screens. Just not so often.

There's no known fix at this time, Nathan. There's however a workaround:

If you enable mouse pointer trails, the corruption will go away.

  1. In your Windows 7 go to Control Panel -> Mouse -> Pointer Options Tab
  2. Enable Pointer Trails.
  3. If you don't like the effect, move the slider all the way to the left. This will make the trailing effect all but disappear.

That's it. The mouse corruption will "not" happen again. The constant redrawing of the mouse trails is effectively hiding the bug from view.

Related Question