Check that your buttons and wheel work, and look for double-click failure.
This looks for a single press being counted twice. Any two left-clicks less than 70ms apart are recorded as a suspected case. Deliberately fast double-clicks will also trip it, so press slowly, one at a time when checking.
You can check whether each mouse button sends a signal the browser sees, whether the wheel registers up and down, and whether a single click is being counted twice - chatter. It all runs in the browser with nothing to install.
Each mouse button contains a switch with metal contacts. As it ages those contacts can bounce as they open and close, and if the hardware and driver fail to filter that bounce, one press is delivered as two clicks. In practice a file you are dragging gets dropped mid-drag, or a single shot in a game fires twice.
Browsers often treat buttons 4 and 5 as back/forward navigation, so the signal never reaches the page. And if your mouse software maps them to a keyboard key or macro, they arrive as that key instead. In that case the keyboard test will show you which key they land on.
| Result | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 suspected (20+ clicks) | No sign of chatter observed |
| 1-2 suspected | Could be coincidence. Press slowly and check again |
| 3 or more suspected | Chatter is likely. See the options below |
It timestamps every left-click and measures the gap between consecutive clicks. A gap under 70ms - faster than a person can deliberately press twice - is flagged as suspected. Techniques like butterfly or jitter clicking will produce those gaps on a perfectly healthy mouse, so press slowly, one at a time when you want a verdict.
This is a rough check, not a substitute for proper hardware diagnostics. Browser or OS settings, and macros from other software, can all change the result.