Feels like a whole new rig

In the last five days I have had to replace both my mouse and my keyboard. They were both pretty old and I really hope that it is just coincidence that they both went bad at nearly the same time. The mouse(wireless) just completely stopped working and a few days later the keyboard (wired) started flickering each time the cord got bumped.

I generally use wireless mouses but decided to go to a wired mouse this time. Right from the start the new mouse was acting up and kind of acting like it had a mind of its own. I never knew if the cursor would move or how fast it might move. I put up with it for a few days and was about ready to get rid of it when my keyboard became buggy. While digging through my junk drawers trying to find something (ANYTHING!) that might make things work long enough for me to get some new parts I came across an old favorite mouse pad. Just for the pure hell of it I put the old mouse pad up on the desk and----BAM! the new mouse worked flawlessly with the old mouse pad. The newer mouse pad is now in the garbage and the old one is back where it should have been all along. The two mouse pads are made of completely different materials.

Now, back to the new keyboard. I really liked my keyboard but it was very old and finally just wore out. I got lucky, however, this may be the one time that I have ever had to replace something and was able to find the same product---THE SAME PRODUCT!!!!
The design is probably ten years old and has not been improved and updated beyond any usefulness.

Now I hope my old monitor and speakers keep working.

The only problem that I have now is that I am using a laptop with the monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse hooked up via a dock and I am unable to close the cover on the laptop without putting it to sleep. Before I changed the keyboard and mouse I could close the lid on the laptop and everything appeared just as it would with a desktop computer. I can't remember how I had things set up so that the computer does not go to sleep when I close the lid.

Every day is a new adventure.

Go into Control Panel. Search for Power Options. Change What Closing The Lid Does.

I guess it got enough sleep last night    it's working fine now.