Cleaning Your Mouse

Your mouse is subject to a lot of wear and tear as it gets used extensively in Windows. One of the things that is most detrimental to mouse performance is dirt. As you move the mouse around, it picks up lint, dust, and other dirt and transfers it into the insides of your mouse where it gradually builds up deposits of this dirt on the rollers and ball inside the mouse. In addition, when you touch your mouse with sweaty or dirty hands, it can develop a sticky coating on its textured surface. Even though this happens only gradually, eventually your mouse will feel pretty nasty to the touch and perform erratically, causing the cursor to jump and stick, and making accurate use of the mouse impossible.

But there’s no reason to throw away your mouse and buy a new one, since you can restore it to almost perfect condition again by taking only ten minutes and giving it a thorough cleaning with some basic household cleaning items. We’ll show you how to turn that filthy rodent back into the precise pointing tool it used to be. But make sure you first shut down your computer and unplug the mouse from the system to be safe.
Look at this filthy rodent

I dug through a box of old used mice at my company and came up with a prime candidate for cleaning. It looks extremely nasty and feels even worse. And that’s only the outside. Let’s take a look at the inside. Turn the mouse over and look at the underside. You should see a circular plastic piece that holds the mouse ball in place. Twist this piece counterclockwise as indicated by the arrows to remove it and the ball.

If you take a closer look now at the ball and the plastic retainer piece, you’ll see they’re covered with grime and other assorted dirt.

But brace yourself, it comes even worse. Look inside the mouse, specifically the rollers that are supposed to pick up the mouse movements. See how they’re covered with a thick layer of some unidentifiable crud? Yuck! No wonder the mouse wasn’t behaving properly.

Let’s get out the cleaning supplies. Here’s what you need: toothbrush warm soapy water toothpick tweezers Q-tips rubbing alcoholDip the toothbrush into the soapy water, shake off excess water (cause you don’t want to soak the mouse), then scrub the outside of the mouse thoroughly to get rid of all the grime. The bristles of the toothbrush will help you get the mouse cleaner than with a regular cloth, because most mice have a textured surface. Repeat this process at least once with soapy water, then twice with clear water until it is clean.Clean the mouse ball with soapy water as well. After removing all the dirt and particles, be sure to rinse it well with clear water to avoid sticky soap residue after it dries.

Now it’s time to attack the grungy guts of the beast. First use a toothpick to loosen the dirt that’s caked around all the rollers, then use the tweezers to carefully remove the dirt without dropping it into the mouse. This might take a little while but with some patience you’ll get all the chunky stuff out of there.

Once the worst is removed, dip a Q-tip into the rubbing alcohol (don’t soak it too much) and proceed to get the last of the dirt off of the rollers and make them nice and clean.Be sure not to assemble and use the mouse right away. You want to let it air-dry for a while to make sure that there’s no moisture inside the mouse when you plug it in. That might not be a good thing. Use a blow dryer on low setting if you’re impatient.Now check it out – is this mouse clean or is this mouse clean? No more dirt on the rollers, no more filth on the ball, no more gunk underneath the mouse.

And the top is nice and shiny as well. No more icky stickiness.

Go ahead and reassemble the mouse. Put it on the mouse pad and move it around a bit. Doesn’t that feel a whole lot better? It should move very smoothly again.Perform this procedure once or twice a year, depending on how often you use your mouse, and you can greatly improve life and performance of your mouse. However, if this is too much work for you or too disgusting, you might want to consider buying an optical mouse that doesn’t have any mechanical parts and therefore doesn’t require any cleaning …