I recently purchased the Apple Mighty Mouse, which by the way is one of the crappiest pieces of computer hardware I have ever purchased, and the scroll ball wheel stopped working after only a few months. After doing a little bit of research, I noticed this was happening to many other people along with me.
I searched the web and found some helpful articles to assist anyone else who seems to be having this problem. Below I have some tips and pointers of my own, and a bunch of links that should help fix the problem. I was going to write my own article on how to fix the scroll ball, but all of the articles are there so why bother?
This is probably the best process to go about cleaning the mouse:
Note: Talk to apple first and see if they will just replace the mouse for you!
1. First just try holding the mouse upside down and rolling the ball around, sometimes that helps to dislodge particles that have gotten trapped down inside the wheel’s cavity. You may also want to try spraying some air at the ball and in the cracks as you roll it.
2. If that doesn’t work, or if it does only for a little bit, I would suggest trying what I ended up having to do. Try using a cotton swab and roll it around the ball vigorously (without liquid of any kind), that helped a lot for me but only lasted a few weeks. You could also try using some isopropyl alcohol or another similar product, but I would try the following idea first before you introduce chemicals.
3. I found another great idea and an article to go with it about using a thin piece of tape to collect the particles that have lodged in the scroll ball. They say to put the sticky side down, but after taking apart the mouse i realized that the problem is not the ball itself, but the rollers that it rides on (The little white things in the picture below). Thus, if possible, it would be better to put the sticky side of the tape facing away from the ball. (You’ll know what I mean when you read the article). Here’s the link to the article: Link
4. If none of those ideas work, you may have to take the mouse apart. Be careful, a lot of things can go wrong if you don’t do it correctly. I would just suggest not taking it apart at all. Heres a good article on how to do it: Link
When my mouse’s wheel jammed up for the last time I ended up having to take the mouse apart which was a project of it’s own. Absolutely do not take the mouse apart unless you have to. It definitely will do a great job to fix the scroll ball problem, but you will end up with more problems trying to put the mouse together. The plastic ring on the bottom of the mouse has to be removed to put the side pieces back in, and it is very hard to do without cracking the ring.
All of the methods and techniques I have shown you are on the web somewhere (except for maybe the cotton swab idea, that was mine =D), but now they are all together in one spot, step by step. I hope this helps.
**Disclaimer: If you break your Mighty Mouse, it’s not my fault.
how did yuu out the parts back together? side buttons do not seem to fit.
Did you take the gray ring off? That is the only way to put those side buttons back on. I found that out the hard way, but I had no patience and ended up cracking the ring. At least my mouse still works though, but without the ring…
I changed the article to make it a little more clear. =)
Cheers mate, I cant believe such an amazing company like apple would bugger up so much on the mouse. When it works its sweet. I got an imac 4 months ago and my wheels just gone dead. My housemates went after 3 months. Joke
Yea it’s really unfortunate… like you said, it’s really nice when it works but it only works for like a month! What a joke!
Cool man glad I could help! Mine is still working too! Even to this day… the flip it upside down and spin it hard thing seems to be keeping it loose.
In the market for a new mouse though… probably one of those new logitechs.
That tape one was a bit weird but it worked for me.
woot.
Just sprayed some air at the ball and it worked fine! Never would’ve thought of it on my own! hahaha thanks a lot!
Thanks for the headsup, my mouse scroll bar still acts up at times, but this helped out a lot.
thank you so much!! mine acts up a lot and the regular apple trick with the wet cloth worked until today, but the cotton swab idea is genius! no idea how long it will last, but thanks!
I’m glad my idea helped out! I finally decided to scrap that mouse and I went out and bought myself a different one… normally I don’t like Microsoft that much, but I do love their mice.
Many thanks for the info on this page. Had my mouse for about 8 months and suddenly realised it was scrolling down and horizontally but not back up a document.
Tried your first tip and gave a bit of a bang to help dislodge whatever was in there and it now works.
Glad I found you.
Regards
cool i’m glad you found my tutorial to be of some use!
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The Mighty Mouse obviously has a design flaw that Apple has decided to live with for the moment . Apple has replaced mine 4 times , each time the tech pretends that this only occasionally happens, but they always give me a new one … I’ve tried the swab and alcohol ,and at the Apple store they tried a dab of liquid hand cleaner . Its the oils from your scrolling finger that contaminate the rollers (usually only one) .So make sure that your fingers are clean . I’ve noticed that you can actually feel some increased resistance on the contaminated roller. I clean the mouse as long as the cleaning works …then i take it back for a new one … and will keep doing so till they stop replacing it …or they get one of their geniuses to fix the design flaw. I’m keeping my scrolling fingers crossed on that one .
I really enjoy the content of your blog, since I am a blog addict I shall return, lol
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Thank you for the sound critique. Me and my neighbor were just setting up to do some research about this. I am very glad to see such great info being shared freely out there.
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