Hi! In hope that i'm not the only one this ever happened to, here's the problem...

One day mouse is working just fine. I turn on the computer the next day and i see the pointer stuck in the center of the screen, and try as i may to make it move, it just won't (this is an optical, ps-2 mouse). First i'm thinking... there's a driver problem. So i look up the driver on the net, download it, try to install it, and i get this error saying that the driver is not compatible with my hardware. I figure, since the mouse is a gembird, that maybe something's happened with the mouse. I go out, get a new one, this time a genius -optical, ps-2 mouse-, plug it in, driver installs itself (courtesy of win xp and everything works beautifuly for a couple of days. Then i turn on my computer one day, and get this deja-vu feeling. The mouse is not working again. I go to the genius site, get the driver for this particular mouse (netscroll + traveler), install it, and the mouse starts working again. Next day i turn on the pc, and what do u know?!.... mouse not working again. I go to device manager and find i don't actually have a mouse. So i try to add it. I go to add hardware. I have my mouse connected but it just doesn't see it. It gives me this list of hardware devices i might want to add, but <mice and other pointing devices> isn't there. I ask it to show me all the devices and i end up with this window that lists possible manufecturers, but genius is not on the list. I choose <have disk> and try to install the driver i had downloaded from the site, but it won't install it because "it is not compatible with the hardware connected". So i give up. I turn off the computer. When i turn it on again, surprise, surprise... mouse is working, driver is there, all is good. It feels like the twilight zone. This thing seems to be adding and removing itself.
Now, if there's somebody out there that can give me any clue as to what i could do to put and end to this... please do!
Things i have tried:
I've scaned the computer for a potential virus... none found.
I've reinstalled windows... problem still there.
Adding the mouse ... just won't work.
What does work is turning the computer on and off for a couple of times...but that's no way to live

I would say it is either a device conflict of some kind or a mobo problem. ie; the usb controller going bad. do you have any other usb devices attached to the system?

ty

i'll try to update the mobo drivers first... see if that helps.
thanks for taking the time