How to test your mouse for button, movement and scroll faults

A button that sometimes doesn't click, a cursor that jumps across the screen, a scroll wheel that skips — before you buy a replacement, find out whether the mouse is actually faulty. This guide walks through a full check in the browser.

The fastest way

Open the Mouse Tester and use the mouse normally over the pad: each button lights up when pressed, your movement is traced live, and the scroll direction is shown. A fault shows up immediately.

What to check

• Every button — left, right, middle (wheel click), and side/thumb buttons should each light their indicator on press.
• Movement — slide the mouse around; the traced path should be smooth, not jagged or jumping.
• Scroll — roll up and down; both directions should register and the wheel shouldn't skip.

Reading the results

If a button doesn't register on the Mouse Tester, that's a hardware fault. If it registers twice from a single press, you likely have a double-click misfire — the Double-click Tester measures the gap in milliseconds to confirm it. Erratic movement on a clean surface points at a failing sensor or a flaky wireless link. Once the buttons check out, the Click Speed Test shows how fast you can click with them, in clicks per second.

Rule out the keyboard too

If you're diagnosing input problems generally, test the keyboard in the same way with the Keyboard Tester — stuck or dead keys show up the same way a dead mouse button does.

A note on privacy

The Mouse Tester reads standard browser input events locally — nothing is installed and nothing is uploaded.

Open the Mouse Tester →