How to Unlock a Frozen Mouse on an HP Laptop

When the mouse on your HP laptop doesn’t move, it could be due to a locked touchpad, a frozen application, a problem with the driver, a hardware issue, or a locked-up computer. To unlock a frozen mouse on an HP laptop, you need to check each of those possibilities and attempt various fixes until it starts moving again.

A frozen mouse on an HP laptop can manifest in a variety of ways, including:

• The mouse cursor remains stationary when you move your finger around on the touchpad.
• The screen appears to freeze, and the cursor won’t move, or you are unable to locate the cursor.
• Nothing happens when you click on things like buttons and links.

Causes of a Frozen Mouse on an HP Laptop

When the mouse freezes up on an HP laptop, the most obvious culprit is a malfunctioning touchpad driver or hardware. However, there are a lot of other potential culprits. A frozen app or an app that’s drawing more resources than your laptop can handle can also prevent the mouse from working correctly. The touchpad could also be locked, so simply unlocking it will take care of the problem.

How to Fix a Frozen Mouse on an HP Laptop

To get the mouse working again on your HP laptop, try each of the following troubleshooting steps in order:

1. Make sure the touchpad isn’t disabled. Some HP laptops allow you to quickly disable the touchpad, which is useful if you’re using a mouse and keep accidentally brushing the touchpad with your palms. To disable or enable the touchpad, try double-tapping the upper left corner of the touchpad. If your HP laptop supports this feature, your touchpad will start working again.

2. Try rebooting your computer. While a frozen computer isn’t the most common cause of a mouse not working on an HP laptop, it is one of the easiest of all the potential fixes. With a frozen mouse, you can reboot with your keyboard by using this method:

   1. Press CTRL + ALT + DEL.
   2. Press TAB until you reach the power icon.
   3. Press enter.

3. Check the touchpad settings. If your touchpad is disabled in Windows settings, and you don’t have an external mouse connected, the cursor will appear frozen or nonfunctional. Check the settings, and enable the touchpad if necessary.

   1. Press Windows key + I.
   2. Use the tab and arrow keys to select Devices, then press enter.
   3. Select Touchpad.
   4. Make sure the Touchpad toggle is On.

4. Use HP Assistant to check for driver updates. The HP Support Assistant includes a variety of tools and wizards to help fix various problems. Launch this assistant, and use it to check for any driver updates.

   1. Open HP Support Assistant.
   2. Select Fixes & Diagnostics from the sidebar.
   3. Select Software & Drivers.
   4. Allow the app to search for updates and apply them if any are available.

5. Use the HP Assistant to check your hardware. The HP Support Assistant can also detect a variety of hardware faults. If your touchpad has broken, the tool may be able to identify that problem and get you in touch with HP support.

   1. Open HP Support Assistant.
   2. Select Fixes & Diagnostics from the sidebar.
   3. In the Run hardware diagnostics section, select Launch.
   4. Follow the on-screen prompts to identify and fix any hardware issues.

6. Update Windows drivers. If the HP Support Assistant wasn’t able to update your drivers, you could do it yourself manually. You may need to locate the driver yourself if Windows Update is unable to do so.

7. Make sure you've enabled the touchpad in the Device Manager. Open the Device Manager, and look for Mouse and other pointing devices. If you see a device with an exclamation mark next to it, that means it's been disabled, there is a conflict or a driver issue.

8. Attempt to fix the touchpad in safe mode. Boot into safe mode, and attempt your fixes there. If you could not update drivers before, try it again once you’ve booted into safe mode. If that doesn’t help, then try uninstalling any recently installed applications while you’re still in safe mode. If you installed something right before your mouse stopped working, there might be a conflict.