I3 mouse cursor drifting issue

General system Kernel, boot, graphics & hardware
1

Hello, I am facing an issue since today but I can’t understand the exact root cause of it.

On a recent install (dual boot windows). My mouse cursor drifts/deviates, it is very noticeable when moving in circles, the cursor deviate heavily from its original position. It works perfectly on lightdm login screen, breaks immediately in i3 session.

I’ve tried various fix without success, has anyone an idea? :sweat_smile:

Hardware

  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
  • GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
  • Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 GAMING X AX V2
  • Monitor: MSI 3440x1440 ultrawide @ 60Hz (100Hz available)
  • Mouse: Logitech G Pro

Software

  • Kernel: 6.18.5-arch1-1
  • i3wm + picom + polybar + autotiling
❯ pacman -Q | grep -E "mesa|xf86-video|vulkan|amdgpu"
lib32-mesa 1:25.3.3-2
lib32-vulkan-icd-loader 1.4.335.0-1
lib32-vulkan-mesa-implicit-layers 1:25.3.3-2
lib32-vulkan-radeon 1:25.3.3-2
linux-firmware-amdgpu 20260110-1
mesa 1:25.3.3-2
mesa-utils 9.0.0-7
vulkan-icd-loader 1.4.335.0-1
vulkan-mesa-implicit-layers 1:25.3.3-2
vulkan-radeon 1:25.3.3-2
~
❯ lspci -k | grep -A 3 -E "(VGA|3D)"
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Navi 48 [Radeon RX 9070/9070 XT/9070 GRE] (rev c0)
        Subsystem: Tul Corporation / PowerColor Reaper Radeon RX 9070 XT 16GB GDDR6 (RX9070XT 16G-A)
        Kernel driver in use: amdgpu
        Kernel modules: amdgpu

Key Diagnostics

Xorg.log shows dropped mouse events:

(EE) event17 - Logitech G Pro : client bug: event processing lagging behind by 42ms, your system is too slow
(II) event17 - Logitech G Pro : SYN_DROPPED event - some input events have been lost

perf top shows 80%+ CPU in kernel delay functions:

64.62% [kernel] delay_halt
17.19% [kernel] delay_halt_mwaitx

Xorg constantly at 12-20% CPU

Weird behavior:

  • Pressing ‘enter’ key in wezterm terminal temporarily fixes mouse
  • Fix persists ONLY while wezterm has focus
  • Changing focus to any window immediately breaks it again
  • Cursor changes appearance when crossing window boundaries (wezterm/desktop/firefox)

Failed Attempts

  • Removed xf86-video-amdgpu
  • Set refresh rate to 100Hz
  • Disabled picom, polybar, autotiling
  • Various xinput acceleration settings
  • focus_follows_mouse no
  • Unified cursor theme
2

Welcome to the community @rznn7 :partying_face: :tada:

Have you tried disconnecting that mouse, and trying a different mouse, to possibly confirm it’s not a hardware issue?

Edit: I’m sorry, I just noted you’d said this, which would probably rule-out a hardware issue.

…as well as the other “Weird behaviour” you mentioned…

3

Do you have any packages installed for game controller support, like sc-controller? I’m seeing some suggestions that weird mouse movement can be caused by those.

4

Thank you!

I checked and nothing showup.

Thanks for your answer! It’s not the first time I encounter issues with Xorg, it might be sign for me to finally switch to a DE using Wayland :sweat_smile:

5

Well I finally found kind of a fix!

The issue was my mouse polling rate set to 1000Hz. As it was set directly in the mouse I could not change it through software on Linux (had to go on Windows, download Logitech G HUB etc.)

In htop the Xorg process now top to ~30% CPU usage when moving the mouse fast, which is acceptable (as I am using i3 mainly to not use the mouse that much ahah).

Thanks for you time!