Causes of Mouse Wheel Not Scrolling

When the mouse won’t scroll, there are two issues that most commonly cause it. The first is the accumulation of dust and dirt, which can lead to mechanical problems with the mouse wheel. The second is low battery levels in wireless mice.

However, these aren’t always the root cause. Other issues include incorrect mouse settings, corrupt system files, or a mouse that’s incompatible with your device.

How to Fix a Mouse Wheel That’s Not Scrolling

These solutions apply to all computer systems that use mice:

1. Reconnect the mouse to a different USB port. You can do this by disconnecting the mouse from the port and plugging it back in. Reconnecting a wireless mouse is a little different, but still easy to do.

2. Replace the batteries. If you’re using a wireless mouse, low battery power is the most common cause of strange mouse behavior. Whether the mouse wheel isn’t scrolling or the mouse is otherwise acting erratically, swapping the batteries is a very quick and inexpensive way to rule out this cause.

   You might also consider switching to rechargeable batteries so you can always have fully charged batteries on hand that you swap out on a schedule. This way you don’t have to wait until your mouse starts acting up before changing them.

3. Clean the mouse. Most modern mice no longer have rollers that need to be cleaned, so the scroll wheel is the only mechanical part. It’s the piece prone to attracting dirt, dust, and food particles. These slip in through the cracks on the side of the wheel and can lead to the mouse scroll wheel not working. If your mouse is wireless, there are some special wireless mouse cleaning considerations to keep in mind.

4. Check the touchpad. If you use a touchpad instead of a traditional mouse, scrolling can be affected by something as simple as a water droplet.

   If you’ve disabled the touchpad, you’ll need to turn it back on before you can scroll.

5. Check the settings for your mouse. Each OS has unique settings to control the mouse wheel. If these change you could experience scrolling problems.

   You can reset your mouse settings in Windows to fix any issues that might have arisen from changes to those settings. If you’re using a Mac, check that scrolling is set to the direction you want.

6. Update the mouse drivers. There are a few ways to do this, but the easiest is to plug your mouse in and run a driver updater tool.

   If you noticed the mouse stopped scrolling after a recent driver installation, undo that driver, reboot your computer, and then see if the mouse scrolls properly.

7. Fix corrupt system files. There might be some important files that aren’t working properly, causing your mouse to malfunction.

8. Try a different mouse. Use a mouse that you’ve confirmed works on a different computer. If it doesn’t scroll correctly on your computer, move on to the next step.

9. If a new mouse doesn’t work, there might be a deeper software issue going on, something only a full factory reset can fix. You can reset Windows or reset macOS to reinstall the operating system.