Mad Mouse Disease!

Despite the loony title to this thread (well this is the GD forum on Flypast, isn’t it?!), I really would welcome any suggestions or fixes for a problem I am having with my new PC.

The problem is, as the title says, mad mouse disease. Periodically, the mouse takes a mind of it’s own and zooms off to some far corner of the screen. When I try to get it under control it does it’s own thing and is not very cooperative about going where I would like it to go.

It’s an optical mouse (with cord) and is plugged into the relevant USB port for a mouse.

I’m running Windows XP.

I’ve tried altering all the various settings for the mouse to see if it makes a difference but nothing seems to work. Tried updating the driver etc.

Googling on the subject tells me that I’m not alone but I’ve yet to find anyone who has found a fix to this – probably because once they’ve fixed it it is not a problem for them anymore so they don’t go back and post the fix!

Has anyone else experienced this problem and more importantly, has anyone discovered a fix for it?

Thanks in advance