Ran into a situation with a Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 7000 that also seems to plague the Wireless Laser Mouse 8000. When placing the Laser Mouse on its charging cradle, the LED on the top of the mouse slowly flashes green for a few seconds, as if it was successfully charging the NiMH battery inside, but then switches to rapidly flashing the LED red.
Taking the rechargeable battery out also results in the flashing red LED. So, the battery is clearly not being recharged. This is further corroborated by the short battery life.
I saw online that some people have found some sort of button underneath the battery and that it’s not being depressed. However, the mouse I was having problems with did not have such a button. There is a small hole under the battery, but no switch or button in the hole.
Upon further investigation, I noticed that the positive metal plate in the battery compartment of the mouse has two plastic rails holding it in place.
When putting the battery inside, the rails tend to press back against the top of the battery such that the battery’s tip doesn’t make good contact with the metal. Since the metal plate is tapered inward, it only makes reliable contact with the battery when the battery is pushed all the way down into the compartment.
As a result of this plastic getting in the way and preventing the battery from making contact with the positive conducting plate, of course it can’t recharge. It also explains why it only charges for a few seconds–just until the battery slips out of position and loses contact. However, the fix for this recharging problem is rather simple.
- Cut a small piece of paper a little shorter than the length of the battery and about twice as wide
- Fold the paper in half to achieve a thickness of two sheets of paper
- Place the battery into the battery compartment
- Put the paper on top of the battery
- Close the battery cover
The cover should go on snugly so that it firmly presses the battery into the compartment. That will enable the positive tip of the Laser Mouse’s battery to stay in contact with the positive conductor plate. If it doesn’t press firmly enough, add one more sheet that’s half the width of the first one (for a thickness of three sheets).
After applying this little fix, the problem mouse’s LED properly throbs green and charges up completely.
(Update: Added photos)
I tried all the suggested fixes:
cleaned the connectors
put alu foil on the small tip to increase connectivity
folded paper even 4 times to get real pressure on
but to no avail.
This mouse won’t work and even had to get the correct driver from microsoft’s site as the CD delivered with the mouse doesn’t work with Win7.
Guess I have no choice then to bring the mouse back to the store and grab me a Logitech like I have at home.
Thanks for the tips nonetheless.
Fu#**’n Genius. Beautiful way to Macgyver the mouse. Thank you!
Thanks for the tips so far, my Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 has given me trouble for 18 months. My fix in the end was to wedge a paper clip between the nipple of the battery and its contact inside the mouse, the battery didnt seem long enough to get a good contact, this work so i retrofitted the battery so the paper clip is stuck to the side of the battery and runs over the top of the battery nipple, tricky to put back in the compartment and had to fiddle a bit before i caould get the cover to fit flush but this is now charging properly for the first time in ages and i thought it was the contacts on the base!
Thanks for your pointers guys, couldnt have done it without a few clues first!
🙂
Thank you worked perfectly first time and my mouse is charging for the first time! Only bought this today and have saved me the effort taking it back.
Just bought a new MS wireless mouse 7000,charged it,did not work, no flashing light,retailer could not work it either, replaced it no problem,new mouse flashing red and green,but did not work,at all, tried the paper system,now flashing green light and presto it works,Thankyou
Thank you very much for this sorted my 7000 out a treat
Lee
Thanks for helping me fix my mouse problems!
Hey dude, managed to fix my work mouse thanks to your guide. Thanks a lot, appreciate the guide and time you took to write it.
Peace.
Wow; this totally worked! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! I got the keyboard/mouse set last week & have been trying to get the mouse to work to no avail. I have also been on microsoft’s website trying to find out what the problem was-again to no avail. Finally after googling a number of times, I ran across your solution. A+++++++++ Thanks so much for sharing! The web & you Rock!
Thanks, Dottie. What words/phrases were you googling before you found this blog post?
thanks
Hey, I just took a knife and cut the two plastic guards and now it works great!
I’ve tried all of the solutions mentioned here including some of my own, and none of them, I mean none of them worked! Tried the paper, broke the plastic rails off, bent the positive side connection more forward, stretched the negative spring side til it popped off and almost took my eye out (oddly enough, I laid the loose spring back in, put the battery back in, removed the battery just to see, and now the spring is locked back in place somehow!). Anyway, I also took the cradle apart and couldn’t see any problems there. I then decided to do more searching, and I came across a reviewer on Newegg that said the problem is with a faulty hidden switch. I’m like, where the hell is this thing??? I took the battery out and looked again. Sure enough, I found it! To locate it, remove your battery of course. Now, right in the center there is a plastic “switch” that runs vertical across the width of the battery chamber. Don’t know why I never noticed it before, it’s completely visible! Anyway, I pressed softly on it with a pen tip, and it seems to move in and out and I could even hear a slight click! Switch located! The suggestion by the Newegg reviewer was to fold paper and put it UNDER the battery. Well, I didn’t get that far because after playing around with pushing the pen tip against the switch, I guess I pushed a little too much and the switch got stuck inward. I was like, oh great! I put the battery back in and decided to try charging it, and now it’s working perfectly! I don’t recommend pushing the switch in til it gets stuck, but you might want to try the folded paper method, at least directly over the switch and then pop the battery back in and see if that solves the problem for you.
Hi Paulie. Thank you, your post was helpful. Don’t worry, it was not removed. I just hadn’t reviewed it yet. All new commentors’ submissions go into a moderator queue for review before appearing on the site (there’s a little note below the comment entry box).
Hi Peter! I know, I realized that after my hasty second message. Somehow after I posted the second time, I was able to see my original message and it said it was awaiting confirmation. I was like, OOPS! and couldn’t find a way to delete it. If you want you can delete the messages after 212. By the way, you asked someone above how they found this thread through Google, so I thought I’d let you know how I found it. I searched “wireless laser mouse 7000 flashing red” and this came up in the #1 spot! Sorry again for my hasty reply and thanks for not hacking my head off for my rude re-post!
Best regards,
Paul
@Paulie: Hey, no problem. If you have fixes for other things, let me know. I can post about them as well, with proper attribution, of course.
I too tried the piece of paper under the battery holder. While it worked initially, it wasn’t long before the dreaded red light returned. I gave it to an engineer at our company who dismantled the mouse to find the purpose of the supposed “switch”. It turns out that there is no switch on ours at least. We have a metal spring clip supporting the battery to which is attached a brown flexible circuit board strip. This contains a thermistor which measures how how hot the battery is getting during the charging process. To avoid overheating and potential battery explosion, the charging circuit is turned off when the detected battery temperature is too high. When batteries have low internal resistance (i.e when they need replacing), they heat up much more during the charging process. Therefore you should not try and charge a damaged battery. By placing paper or plastic strip between the battery and the spring metal cradle, you are insulating the temperature sensor from the battery. THIS COULD LEAD TO OVERCHARGING AND EXPLOSION SO DO NOT DO IT. Instead, simply replace the NiMh battery with a fully charged unit and your red light woes should disappear.
Thanks for the info, Steve.
I just want to reiterate that Steve’s warning above is regarding putting anything under the battery. If your flashing red LED is due to a poor battery connection, then the paper-on-top solution (between the battery and battery cover) is worth a try and will not interfere with the thermal safety mechanism under the battery.
Good point Peter.
Steve
Same problem kept my Logitech MX700 from charging….needed a slightly different fix, but I never would have known where to start looking w/o this page. Thanks so much to the author….
@Mike: Thanks. So what was the fix for your Logitech MX700? Someone else may run into the same thing.
Wow! that really worked for me :). Thank you so much.
Thanks, man!
For me, I found the paper trick only works with the mouse power switch in the “on” position otherwise it will blink red when “off’.
My battery appears to be charging indicated by the pulsing green light, but the mouse will not work.
If I replace the rechargable battery with a normal Eveready battery it works fine. Really frustrating because it defeats the purpose of purchasing a rechargeable mouse.
Any ideas?