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I'm using Chrome, and the scroll rate is like 3 lines, and it's painfully slow. My finger gets tired really quickly on long pages. System → Preferences → Mouse lacks any scroll wheel configuration options.

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6 Answers 6

Reset to default
62

The fix for me for this (I had it for months) was pretty surreal and like most folks I didn't believe it until I did it:

Some MS mice have a scrollwheel bug.

Try unplugging the USB cable / dongle then plug back in.

Also, I noticed that if you have the dongle plugged in to the computer and the mouse has an on-off mechanism then you can just turn the mouse off and back on. That resets the data link between the mouse and dongle.

:)

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  • 4
    Fixed it for me. My scroll rate was way too fast, not too slow, but same solution. I have a KVM switch to go between a Ubuntu machine and Windows 7. The problem returns every time I KVM back to the Ubuntu. Give the mouse USB doodad few seconds of freedom, and the problem is gone.
    – DarenW
    Sep 5, 2013 at 16:58
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    I can't believe it. This fixes it for me as well.
    – Hery
    Apr 20, 2014 at 13:35
  • Fixed MS Wireless Mobile Mouse 1000, FCC ID: c3k1452 model 1452
    – rlib
    Jul 11, 2014 at 15:02
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    +1 I was skeptic too, but it works. When in doubt with MS, reboot.
    – nha
    Jul 31, 2014 at 20:20
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    In my case, just turning on and off my mouse worked.
    – lepe
    Aug 23, 2014 at 12:22
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I wanted to do this too, and I figure I most often want to do it in a web browser (where else do you really mouse-wheel scroll a great deal?)

For Google Chrome

One can no longer change the scroll amount with command line parameters. However, you can use this add-on extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chromium-wheel-smooth-scr/khpcanbeojalbkpgpmjpdkjnkfcgfkhb?utm_source=plus

For Firefox

  1. In the url field, type about:config.

  2. Search for the following settings and change their values as desired:

    mousewheel.system_scroll_override_on_root_content.enabled
mousewheel.system_scroll_override_on_root_content.horizontal.factor
mousewheel.system_scroll_override_on_root_content.vertical.factor
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    On firefox 17 and up, "mousewheel.withnokey.sysnumlines" and "mousewheel.withnokey.numlines" are both deprecated. The new settings' names is: "mousewheel.system_scroll_override_on_root_content.enabled", "mousewheel.system_scroll_override_on_root_content.horizontal.factor" and "mousewheel.system_scroll_override_on_root_content.vertical.factor". You can see it here: bitbucket.org/cat_in_136/configuration-mania/issue/101/…
    – Leonardo Montenegro
    Aug 9, 2013 at 17:35
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    According to a comment below, --scroll-pixels is deprecated and may not be available for chrome anymore. in that case, see this extension: chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chromium-wheel-smooth-scr/…
    – Michael Butler
    Jan 30, 2014 at 22:46
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    For the impatient, regarding the Chromium Smooth Scroller: Settings that worked well for me (trusting you want things faster than default, too): Step Size: 100, Smoothness (forepart): 0, Smoothness: 68, Acc Sensitivity: 115 and (much further down): Bouncy Edge: 0 (irritating gimmick imho)
    – Frank N
    Oct 25, 2016 at 1:18
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    Why does that plugin „require“ full access rights to every web page I read?
    – Frank N
    Nov 17, 2016 at 9:08
  • I've created a simple chrome extension called Scroll Speed in which you can set the scroll factor. Can be found here: chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/scroll-speed/… It has much better performance than the "smooth scroll" extensions I've tried to fix this problem.
    – Bert Hekman
    May 2, 2020 at 14:29
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From triaged bug #619403 on mouse-wheel acceleration against xorg-server with a link to this patch you can see there is work in progress.

In addition there is a Wiki on how to configure input devices that gives you ideas on what is possible at present:

Use xinput to show setting of your input devices:

xinput --list gives you information on your hardware xinput query-state "name of device" lists the current settings (including mouse wheel!)

Only after you know how your mouse is set up you are able to change these setting using xinput with the option appropriate for your device.

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  • how do you apply this patch?
    – user6465
    Jan 22, 2011 at 0:24
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    If not for testing or contributing it is generally not a good idea to patch Xorg server. If you don't know exactly what you're doing and something goes wrong you may end up with a non-responsive system.
    – Takkat
    Jan 25, 2011 at 7:15
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The option to configure mouse wheel speed in chrome seems to have been removed, however the Chromium Wheel Smooth Scroller extension seems to work really well.

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5

This was also annoying me.

This following is one option quoted verbatim from a comment here

sudo apt-get install imwheel

place the following in ~/.imwheelrc

"^google-chrome$"
None, Up, Button4, 2
None, Down, Button5, 2

(replace 2 by the number you want to multiply scrolling by)

$ imwheel
  • I added imwheel to my startup applications
  • I found the mutliplier 2 to be about right.

Update: I found that the following option actually disabled Ctrl+Scroll to zoom, which I quite like.

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    Another side-effect is that this affects all mouse wheel events, not just scrolling. E.g. if you ever use the mouse wheel to change tabs this will ruin that functionality :)
    – Sheldon
    Nov 29, 2011 at 14:58
  • Have a look at this similar post: askubuntu.com/a/621140/385212, it demonstrates how to still use Ctrl+Scroll to zoom, etc.
    – Steven C. Howell
    Aug 13, 2015 at 22:38
  • this doesn't seem to work any longer :(
    – Jeff Puckett
    Apr 29, 2016 at 19:16
  • This worked in chrome, however any other application it now selects the text rather than scrolling the window :(
    – Jamie Hutber
    Nov 11, 2016 at 12:34
  • Thanks for the startup applications advice. I was digging around „upstart“ which of course is way to early in the process...
    – Frank N
    Nov 17, 2016 at 9:46
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UPDATE:

There is a new, great extension for mouse's wheel settings in Chrome. Use it and you can customize your wheel behaviour:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chromium-wheel-smooth-scr/khpcanbeojalbkpgpmjpdkjnkfcgfkhb?utm_source=plus

OLD:

Please note unfortunately --scroll-pixels is deprecated and removed from Chrome and Chromium. This flag has not effect on scroll speed.

More details here: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=154776

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