Mouse Icon Distorted on Secondary Display
The problem is unfortunately an old bug with ATI cards under some multi-monitor setups that is being reported since at least 2009. I experienced it with an HD 4770. It was particularly recurring when I would host a virtual machine in fullscreen mode on my secondary monitor. But would also happen without it when I moved between screens. Just not so often.
There's no known fix at this time, Nathan. There's however a workaround:
If you enable mouse pointer trails, the corruption will go away.
- In your Windows 7 go to
Control Panel -> Mouse -> Pointer Options Tab - Enable Pointer Trails.
- If you don't like the effect, move the slider all the way to the left. This will make the trailing effect all but disappear.
That's it. The mouse corruption will "not" happen again. The constant redrawing of the mouse trails is effectively hiding the bug from view.
I'll add my workaround to the mix here, since they all suck a little. I've fixed the problem each time by moving the mouse to the top-right or bottom-right corner of the screen. I think by getting the mouse completely off screen, it's forcing the problem to resolve itself.
I'm using Windows 8.1 and have an AMD 7870.
I had this problem, too, my mouse pointer sometimes looked very trashy, like I have serious memory or display driver problems. Windows 7, dual screen, Vmware, integrated Intel display adapter, HP desktop PC. I don't think this problem is connected to any specific hardware component. The problem is with Windows and VMware, but I believe it's only in dual screen mode. Hardware doesn't matter.
My solution: Control Panel / Change how the mouse pointer looks = Mouse Properties then go to Pointer Options tab, check Display pointer trails. This is going to make the movement of your mouse pointer crazy I know, but now slide to the trail delay to the shortest. (slide it to the left)
After setting the above options my mouse pointer started to behave normally, and the the cursor distortion has gone forever! (After two PCs and two weeks I am almost sure actually) (After applying these new settings perhaps you will need to change the pointer look once)