[tlug] Mouse trouble

[CL <az.4tlug@example.com>]

This morning, the torrenting machine, a 2-core AMD homebuilt which runs 
Xubuntu 12.04 (x64), refused to accept left clicks from my wireless 
mouse (which has its receiver attached to a PCI USB driver card).  I 
plugged a USB mouse into the system (which uses the USB bridge on the 
motherboard) and it behaved the same way.  I rebooted and can call up 
any program from the main launcher menu using left click, select items 
and make changes using left click ... but I cannot save the changes by 
left clicking the "OK" button nor leave the page by clicking the "X" in 
the upper right hand corner.  In cases where there are multiple buttons 
at the bottom of the window, all are dead.  I can close, but not save 
changes, by right clicking the program name in the system tray and 
selecting "Close."

I have tried an Xubuntu 12.04 i386 and x64 live CDs and UBCD's Parted 
Magic (Slackware) desktop with the same results.  When I ran repair boot 
from Grub, some of the text was replaced by strings of diamonds but 
_appeared_ to perform repairs.  So, I am _assuming_ that the Xubuntu 
install on my HDD isn't borked and the problem is Something Else, 
possibly hardware.

As a data point, Xorg would not load, even when manually configured. 
Xvesa runs automatically, if selected, and is currently running at 1280 
x 768, which leaves a very large chunk of black real estate on a 1080I 
screen.  Nothing else is jumping out at me except that a hardware check 
reported a couple of pre-boot errors and I am scanning the disk in 
repair mode to eliminate that.

Am I correct in assuming that the problem is Xorg-related?  Nvidia BIOS 
is almost 10 months old and I do not recall seeing updated drivers in 
the Apper recommended uploads list in several weeks.  I am wondering 
where to go next -- driver upgrade / downgrade, re-flash the BIOS, or 
getting the disk naked and reinstalling the OS -- or something else? 
Any recommendations what else to check?

--
CL