Good evening!

My new computer will be used for a lot of gaming and hence I'd like a good gaming mouse. But that's not enough, it must be silent! I'm not talking about the clicking noise here. Currently I'm using a Logitech MX-518, but it's suffering from high-pitched whine. Very annoying! (It's so high-pitched I can barely hear it, but it still gives me a headache!) I also have a Logitech Trackman Wheel and it's dead quiet. Unfortunately it's not very good at all for gaming though. While I can't say that I esteem clicking sounds very highly, I'm not nearly as bothered by them as high-pitched whine or noise.

So I'm looking for suggestions on a silent gaming mouse.

Note: When I say gaming, I don't mean fancy LEDs, leet design, etc, I mean a high-performance (as in high-precision/high DPI) mouse that's not too heavy etc. A mouse perfect for 3D games that is. I don't know anything about the latest generation of mice.

Any suggestions? Any contemporary gaming mice known to be either noisy/whiny or silent?

Thanks!

After doing some Googling it appears that all Logitech gaming mice (MX518, G5 and G7) exhibit (suffer from) this high-pitched "squeal".

Does anyone know if the Razer gaming mice are affected as well?

(I don't really like Razer mice per se, because of their annoying LED and their blatant "leet" design. But LEDs can be disabled. In the case of Logitech's mice it appears that the noisy part is the IR (infra-red) LED transmitter used in handling scroll wheel functionality and the only confirmed fix is to disable the scroll wheel altogether, not an acceptable solution.)

Hello

I have a Razer Deathadder. No whine what so ever.
With the LED (bling !) stuff turned off it looks alot better. Great mouse btw.
Had an MX500 before. Didnt have the mentioned whining problem.

I've used Razer mice for years (Diamondback and now Copperhead). I have never heard any such whine before, so I assume that means no, they don't have it. I believe the Razer Lachesis has LED control in the software. I am however, not sure if that means that you can just dim them or if you can turn them off all together.

Razer Lachesis here, no whine at all, even with my ear on it I can't hear anything.
But the clicks aren't as quiet as I expected, although quieter than the M$ mouse I previously had.
The LEDs can be turned off, but I don't since they are annoying only if I look at them when my hand doesn't cover them.
The feeling of the mouse isn't 'plasticky' as I was used to, it feels more like fine glove leather.

I have MX518 Batman edition and trackman wheel on mainrig: NO whine what soever. In Linux computer / 2ndary gaming rig I have original Razer Diamondback: No whine whatsoever. On game rig i have Microsoft / Razer Habu: No whine whatsoever + Bling can be turned off.

I have had Razer Krait and Lachesis No whine on them what so ever. I did not could update Lachesis firmware to improve the problems I had with USB boot on it and cursor suffered some stubborn wanderlust with it. New firmware should have fixed it but somehow it just wouldn't patch the firmware so I gave Lachesis to my brother.

I will definitely get a Razer mouse. According to here even the Logitech G9 exhibits this squealing "issue". Now the question's only: Which Razer?

LED:s are bad, mmm-kay?
I find these unnecessary mouse LED:s to be visual noise, hence I simply can't stand them. So there should be some sort of off switch for the mouse LED:s. As you guys said the Lachesis' LED:s can be easily turned off via software. Excellent! But what about the other Razers?

There is also the new budget Razer called Salmosa that comes stock without LED:s. However according to Razer it's a "MMO/RTS" mouse, comes with fewer buttons (only three), lower specs, etc. I do a bit of everything, so I'm looking for a good all-round mice that would work well with FPS games as well. On the other hand I don't have large hands, so a smaller mouse would likely fit me well. Unfortunately I don't know the first thing about the different grips, the fact that I'm currently using a Trackman Wheel doesn't help.

How important is the new "Ultrapooling" feature btw, the 1kHz/1ms response time thing that comes with the latest generation of Razer mice?

The difference between 125hz and 500hz is quite noticeable: 500hz feels a lot smoother. Once you get used to 500hz, you'll really feel the choppiness of 125hz.

There isn't any noticable difference between 500hz and 1000hz though.

G5 here - and there is no whine, but like most mice it makes a clicking noise . Also, I agree - LED lights are annoying, and the G5 has one. My monitor power LED is a lot worse though.

Let us know what you end up going with and how it turns out.

I love having zero wires connected to my keyboard/mouse, so I use a G7 for games. The teflon feet give it incredibly low friction(granted you could just add teflon pads to any mouse) and therefore, low noise on most surfaces. It does "click", but I've never heard any whine from it, and this is my second G7. Only issues with them is that they both suffered from interference with my wireless network. Changing the wireless channel/frequency would probably help this, but I've only got one laptop wireless, and it's hardly ever used when I game, so no need to change it.

I'm pretty sure most, if not all, Razer mice can have their LEDs disabled. My Razer Deathadder mouse has its LEDs disabled through the driver software. Settings on the Deathadder are saved on the mouse. You can uninstall the drivers or move the mouse to another computer and the LEDs still remain disabled.

I have a G5 I use on my home system and its all but wearing out.. mainly from overuse -- ive had it for about 3 years now.
never heard any whine from it, but it does make the normal clicky sounds when I used it. I find the audio feedback very useful.

As for the LED lights - the only thing on it is the DPI indicator -- which I have found invalueable when I accidently changed the dpi settings and wondered why everything was so slow. w/o the LED I would not have been able to tell.

wow mice make noise?
weird.
my sidewinder is like all the mouses i've ever touched in my life, silent.

I've had the Microsoft Habu (more or less a Razer Deathadder). No whining at all.

The blue LED could be turned off through the included RAZER driver, but each time I booted the machine, the mouse forgot all settings and ran back to mama default. It was with the lates drivers and firmware. Urgh !!!

I hated the feel (made my thumb hurt after half an hour), so I returned it after a few days, and never digged further into driver settings...

Now I got a Sidewinder (first edition). I dont think the red light on the Sidewinder can be turned off. But it's a great mice, if it fit the hand - adjustable weight for instance. In my case, it's one of very few mices, where I like the ergonomics. Furtunately, I like the look too.

when i 1st saw teh sidewinder i said that was one WEIRD mouse. Shaped odd and i thought would be weird to hold.
Then i got it and it was actually more comfortable than my old intellimouse. The intellimouse hurt my pinky cause the way i hold it.
So far the sidewinder has been a good solid mouse

I really like the SideWinder - yes, it dont looks comfortably to hold - but it is. But I dont think the ergonomics is for everyone, so the grip test is important

What I like about the looks, is it's different and more roughed. And the thumb buttuns above each other is genious. Far more usefull than the ones I've tried on Logitech etc.

I have both the G5 rev 2 and the Copperhead, and the G5 has a softer click compared to the other one for me.

I used to use a Logitech mx500. It made this high pitch noise, like everyone elses. In addition it was very heavy. I once opened it up, and removed a metal weight that was screwed in to the chassis. That took it from maybe 126g to 113g but can't remember for sure. Also I removed the small bent metal wire piece that makes the mouse wheel clicky, in effect making the mouse wheel free spinning.

These modifications helped a bit, but eventually I bought a Razer Lachesis and an Ulti-Mat Original teflon-covered metal mouse pad with rubber bottom. The Lachesis had weird bugs at first: The cursor would react weirdly to moves, stutter, and occasionally it totally lost it's vertical or horizontal axis, only making the cursor move in one axis. As I searched the web, both of these were known problems, and there was a firmware update that I installed to my mouse, and it did indeed fix both problems. However I find it very odd to need to do any firmware updates to a mouse. In my book, mice should just work.

There is still one bug remaining: Occasionally on reboot or power up, the mouse does not initialize, and the OS does not find it. Often when this happens, the mouse led starts flashing very rapidly. Only way to fix it is to replug the usb connector of the mouse to the PC, or power cycle. This last bug only happens quite rarely, but it does happen on both linux and windows, so it must be a hardware problem.

The led can indeed be disabled for good. Factory preset is blinking the led slowly. That's total crap I tell you. Who on earth wants a blinking led in a mouse? Even the most die hard bling-bling fan would probably get annoyed when he/she is trying to watch a movie with lights dimmed when your freaking mouse is blinking, let alone me who does not like such visual noise in the first place.

For disabling the led you need to have some windows machine, install lachesis control panel, connect the mouse, and set the led off. Then the led will stay off forever, in any computer you connect the mouse to. This is what I did, since I do not know of a way to turn it off from linux. There are actually 2 leds, the other lights the palm of your hand, and the other lights the scrollwheel. I let the scrollwheel light stay constant, and it serves as my power indicator, if I need to know if my computer is on.

The Lachesis is indeed silent, I can't hear a thing even if I put it against my ear and close my other ear with a finger. The surface is nice smooth rubber, instead of just plastic. There are no seams between the palm support and the buttons, which is nice. The chassis just bends enough to let you click the buttons. The side buttons however are way far too heavy to press, so I never use them. They have been made heavy on purpose so you wouldn't press them accidentally, but they are too hard to press even on purpose imo.

The Lachesis is also light, under 100g. There are no extra weights anywhere. This is very good, since together with low friction teflon pads, it needs very little force to move around, stressing ones hand less, so less chances of RSI.

Quite a lot Logitech mice have the same noise issue. The problem is a ceramic capacitor that sings along at 15kHz (so some people won't hear it).

If you are reasonably good with soldering, you can replace the cap. For a picture/location of the cap check:

http://jdc.parodius.com/logitech/

(I replaced the cap in a MX518 with a 0.22uF polyester one and the mouse is completely silent now.)

I just found out about the high pitched whine of my MX518 on my own and immediately thought about posting it on SPCR, but found this thread as the first google search result. I can faintly hear it when there's little environmental noise (no passing traffic outside, no talking or music playing).

I'm probably going to try replacing the offending capacitor soon, since I'm planning to replace the (too heavy/stiff) cable with the lighter one from my old Razer Diamondback. I'd like to know where I could get such a capacitor though, without having to do a minimum xx euros order.

@BringerOfLight: Did you use a SMD polyester capacitor? I'm just trying to find the right type that won't be too hard to solder onto the PCB. I have a fine tipped (0.5mm IIRC) soldering iron.

My MX510 has a whine so close to silent I have to put it against my ear and press hard to hear it. If it were any softer I'd think I was imagining it. And I've never even on the quietest of nights heard it. I wouldn't have known it was there if I didn't read this thread.

The good news for most of us is that as we age that high frequency will be above our newly dropped range of hearing.

FWIW It sounds higher pitched in my left ear so my right ear has stiffened up and aged slightly faster.

I can vouch for the Razer Imperator in my own use. I'm a silencing enthusiast and it's good enough for my ears - certainly no electrical noises. As a side note, I've tried non-clicky mice and was not impressed, would never use those for gaming.

Regarding the whining mice: I've had two. Both my MX510 and its replacement MX518 had the whine. Both developed it some weeks or months after starting use. It got noticeable very quickly and I had to get a Razer Deathadder. Have been very happy with Razer mice since.

Edit1: the date is 2012-09-15, and I am fed up with Razer mice.

Their quality has proven to be subpar - the Deathadder fell to pieces shortly after its warranty ran out (I thought it was my fault, turns out it was a common issue with 1st generation DAs) and now the Imperator pulled the exact same stunt. Unacceptable for premium-priced products. Plenty of reports and fixes for similar problems on the internet.

Deathadder's cause of death: unreliable scroll wheel that collapsed in on itself (poor construction, weak axle mechanism).
Imperator's cause of death: LMB doubleclicking constantly instead of clicking, ghost-clicking (again, poor construction, way too thin contact strip flattens out).

I'll give Steelseries a try next. Their headphones seem to last at least, and their warranty covers 2 years instead of one.