CPS Arena · hardware forensics

The Double-Click Checker

Click at your normal pace, 30 times or so. We time every gap and tell you if your switch is firing phantoms.

clicks seen0
suspicious gaps0
shortest gap–
Click here, normally Deliberate single clicks — the pace you'd click a link. Around 30 gives a fair sample. Every gap is timed.

Verdict appears after 10 clicks.

How the timing reads: a deliberate human double-click has 80 ms or more between the two presses; even speed-clicking rarely dips below 40. A worn micro-switch "bounces" — the metal contact chatters and fires a second click under 30 ms after the first, far too fast to be a finger. One stray reading means little. A pattern of sub-30 ms gaps from calm single clicks means the switch is failing.

Why good mice go bad

Inside every mouse button is a micro-switch with a small spring contact rated for tens of millions of presses. As it wears — faster in heat, faster still on some famous switch batches — the contact stops closing cleanly and starts chattering. The OS sees two clicks where you made one: files open twice, items drag-drop themselves, single shots fire double. It feels like a software bug, which is why people reinstall drivers for a month before suspecting the hardware.

Using the result

If the verdict here shows a bounce pattern, screenshot it with your click log visible. Warranty desks respond well to "single clicks are registering gaps of 8–20 ms, consistent with switch bounce" — it's specific, it's measurable, and it's the known failure mode they've replaced a thousand mice for. If you're out of warranty and handy with a soldering iron, replacement switches cost a few dollars; otherwise, some OS settings and vendor utilities can mask the problem with a software debounce at the cost of legitimate fast clicks — a trade the CPS test will show you directly.

Not the mouse?

Test a different mouse on the same port before concluding anything — and note that wireless mice on dying batteries produce ghost inputs of their own. Trackpads don't have this failure; if you're seeing doubles from a trackpad, it's the tap-to-click sensitivity setting, not a switch.