While one might think that there's absolutely no relationship (and thus, no interference) between a mobile phone and a computer USB mouse, the truth of the matter is quite different. And that's because we've managed to actually stop a Microsoft mouse from working in certain conditions, by using nothing but a mobile phone.

Hence, over the past couple of months, I've noticed the following events occurring so often that it has become quite clear that they're not isolated ones, but following a definite pattern. So, here is the full story.

The mouse I'm using on one of the older machines around the office is a Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000 model, which is, by far, one of the best peripherals I've ever come across, at least as far as its level of usability over long periods of time is concerned. However, I noticed the fact that, whenever I was getting a call on my Nokia 6288 (yeah, I know, it's old), the peripheral would simply stop responding, at the same time, the USB disconnect sound played in the speakers.

First, I thought that it was a strange occurrence; then, I realized that it happened way too often to be just an accident. Of course, the problem could be easily solved by simply changing the USB port the mouse cord was inserted in, but after a couple of times, it would simply stop responding completely.

After searching around the Internet for similar problems, I've found several users’ reviews of the same mouse telling the exact same story. Apparently, the biggest issue here was the insufficient shielding of the USB cord, and quite a lot of people have gone through a similar experience.

However, I've also noticed that it, by placing the mobile phone a little further away from the Microsoft peripheral, the mouse would work fine. So, what I did was recreate the experiment, by calling my cell phone number from another phone and gradually moving the handheld away from the mouse.

In the end, I noticed that, by holding the phone at a distance of above 30 cm from the mouse (that's around 11 inches), the device would keep working even when I would receive a call. Plus, I also tried this experiment with other mobile phone brands. In some cases, this situation still occurred, but in others (such as the iPhone and some other more recent smartphones), nothing happened.

So, has such a situation ever occurred in your case? If so, how did you manage to solve it, other than simply replacing the mouse or placing your mobile phone further away from your computer?