Virus affecting my peripherals (mouse/keyboard)

[Addi_P]

Yesterday, after I rebooted my PC my mouse pointer was gone. I tried to reboot again and this time there was a pointer but I was unable to move it.
I tried other mice/USB ports and they didnt work either. Note that they all recieved power, but nothing else worked.

When I looked in device management, my mouse was shown as a keyboard so i removed the device in order for the setup/drivers to be reinstalled. Unfortunately that didnt work and after a 4th reboot my keyboard stopped working as well. I decided to move my HDD to a second PC since I was pretty sure some corrupt file was causing the issue, and to no surprise, when I booted that device off the original HDD, keyboards/mice didnt work on the second PC

At this point I was certain it was the HDD. So I decided to boot windows from a working drive, so I can format the faulty one. But while I was backing up my files (always running the system on the working drive), my mouse stopped working. So in fear of the problem being caused by a virus which speead to the good drive, I disconnected everything and booted the 2nd PC in Selective Mode to run a virus scan with Norton, which has so far found nothing wrong.

My question is, are there any known viruses that could cause my peripherals to not work and if so, what can I do? Could something else non-virus related cause this to both PCs? I have reached the limit of my... limited PC knowledge and most of the solutions I found online were driver related and didnt work for me, so any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Robert Ban]

Hmm, yes and no.
First if you downloaded stuff, then yes, it can mine and stutter your whole system.
The no, may be the drivers.

If you admit that you downloaded something sketchy, windows reinstall would be advised or if you can use keyboard system restore point (sometimes help).

 

[Addi_P]

I have been downloading files lately, mostly addons for certain games, but they were from trusted sites and had thousands of downloads so I cant imagine how such a difficult to detect virus would sneak its way in and not be detected by Norton. Regardless, I'll wait a bit and hopefully find a decent alternative than having to reinstall windows on 2 PCs. I will also look into the restore function which I completely forgot about. Thank you for your response.

 

[Robert Ban]

Yeah it might be driver issue, just uninstall in device manager under mouse or hid compilant (remember that you may uninstall joystick and other controllers), and restart would be eunogh.

 

[guanyu210379]

I have been downloading files lately, mostly addons for certain games, but they were from trusted sites and had thousands of downloads so I cant imagine how such a difficult to detect virus would sneak its way in and not be detected by Norton. Regardless, I'll wait a bit and hopefully find a decent alternative than having to reinstall windows on 2 PCs. I will also look into the restore function which I completely forgot about. Thank you for your response.

Can you please mention the websites?

 

[Addi_P]

I have finally completed a full Norton scan on the 2nd drive with no detected virus, so hopefully it wasn't infected and the secondary system is mostly safe. Now I am contemplating whether I should plug the other -more broken- HDD again so I can do a virus scan on it as well. But I am afraid that IF the problems occured due to a virus, it might spread on the good system just like it nearly did the first time.

Can you please mention the websites?

actraxx.blogspot.gr and RaceDepartment. Both are well-respected sites amongst the Sim-racing community and while anyone can post content for download on their forums, I obviously only download from 1-2 well-known creators. Not sure if you are interested in exact download links.

 

[guanyu210379]

Racedepartment looks ok sofar.

I dunno about actraxx.
Anything with .blogspot. can not be 100% trusted because mostly are not popular enough to get certain statistic numbers in order to say they are clean or not.

Although, I do not think your problem is due to virus.
Can I just assume, you are on Win10? This should be driver issue after some Win update.
https/www.drivethelife.com/windows-10/fix-cursor-disappears-in-windows-10.html

 

[Addi_P]

Racedepartment looks ok sofar.

I dunno about actraxx.
Anything with .blogspot. can not be 100% trusted because mostly are not popular enough to get certain statistic numbers in order to say they are clean or not.

Although, I do not think your problem is due to virus.
Can I just assume, you are on Win10? This should be driver issue after some Win update.

The problem started happening on Windows 10. That's where I lost mouse control, and then keyboard as well. I do remember a windows update taking place during the weekend and after Norton coming up clean, so I am now leaning towards the drivers messing up as well. The fact that my secondary PC (Win8.1) also got the same issue when I plugged the 'broken' HDD alongside the primary drive is weird, but hopefully it was coincidental and not a sign of a virus spreading. I'll try connecting it again and running a Norton scan and I'll update the thread again. And hey worst case scenario, I still got the restore function Robert suggested.

This whole process is frustrating, especially on a Monday, but it's also intriguing...