I bought that zone alarm, seems like a nifty little device. But this doesn't only happen when I'm online. It happens no matter what I'm doing. Freezing and mouse spazms. And the mouse, when you move it a tad bit, it goes to a completely different part of the screen, and does something to about five files in the process. And I think my computer is just going nuts... and the people at Gateway won't help me without my long lost client number and computer serial number. Anyway, the thing I really want to know is if there is some way a hacker could do things to your computer while you're not on? When you're not even connected to the internet?

Not likely on the hacker. I don't know what advice you have been given so sorry if you have heard some of it before. One do a virus scan, there are viruses that can cause this problem with the mouse. After scan if nothing than check the mouse settings from the control panel, now do a system scan from your accessories, system tools just to check that all files are working. Next check the web site for the latest drivers for the mouse, it can get to acting strange with wrong drivers. Next just for giggles go to video control card settings and set to minimum,from the optimum they are usually set at, sometimes a bad driver on the video card can even affect the mouse. Another thing to do if you still have the install disk (for the mouse) is to delete it and reinstall. I have also been seeing strange behaviour based upon the latest version of IE 5.0 and higher, but that is only guestimation not fact, go to system tools if running win98 or higher and click on IE repair tool, see if it needs repair. Other than that you need better technical help from one of the forums experts. Good luck

Why do you people not post your system specs, this is a key aspect when troubleshooting and is probably a major contributor to systms that run slow and sometimes freeze, people using old cpu's with not enough ram and trying to run state of the art software (games are a good example) with which old processors have trouble coping with the heavy workload. Lets not always assume he needs new drivers or he has a virus or a trojan and some hacker has gained control. If a hacker has access to your system why would he bother to play with your mouse? answer: He wouldnt give a s--- when he has access to your files. Check your system resources, monitor your memory usage, what processes are running and how many...How do I do that? Cool tool . . . start/programs/accessories/system tools/system infomation also start/programs/accessories/system tools/system monitor <-- play with those and find out how to use them exellent for troubleshooting lags. Im not sure if win95 has these utilities. The mouse problem is typical of a system that cannot cope with the number of processes running at the time, the mouse had interupted a process in progress the cpu has stopped to process the command from the mouse and then continued with what it was doing causing a lag and what would seem like a jumping mouse cursor. CPU working overtime and or not enough RAM. easy

Excellent points kerryea. Eliminate the obvious first. (System Monitor's {sysmon} IS incl with most Win95's, very useful prog btw)