Carol, the reason I point at looking at the VIA & Promise drivers first is that I have seen your exact problem on both VIA systems and systems with Promise controllers. Changing the drivers usually fixed it. That you have both puts you in I believe what the Brits call a sticky wicket.

One version of the Promise drivers had a setting that would alleviate the pauses. Searching through Google and Google Groups for the words Promise and "mouse stuttering" will show you that hundreds of people have had the same problem you are having now. The solution is not always pretty.

As for ATI is concerned, at least with older versions of the Catalyst drivers, it seems the ones with the normal control panel are best & the Catalyst Control Panel is a little flakey.

Finding faultless VIA drivers may be a trip into madness. The newest aren't always the best. You'll have to find the version that works best on your hardware.

The Roboform people are being unreasonable, IMHO. You bought the software & you are entitled to it. Fortunately for you, though, there is an activator out in the wild. If the Roboform people will not see reason you will be able to go to the shady side of the street for a bit & activate that to which you are legally entitled.

Oh, geesh...you have a VIA chipset I notice.

You may want to reinstall the latest VIA chipset drivers and see if that doesn't fix it. If not, we'll try something else.

EDIT: I just noticed double trouble...you may wish to ensure you have the latest Promise drivers as well.

I have to agree. I've looked at every audio file organizer/tagger there is & while The Godfather may have a silly name, not be as pretty to look at as some of the others, and may not have the best-laid out user interface, it is a very powerful.

It's so powerful, in fact, that it puts a lot of those $30-40 programs to shame. Did I mention The Godfather is freeware?  :)