Weird Cursor Behavior in WinXP

I installed a new copy of WinXP Home and right on logon there appears a white pixel next to the mouse pointer which soon disappears. Plus, all blinking cursors anywhere (like in CMD.exe or COMMAND.COM or Notepad or MS Word) have the right lower pixel staying on without blinking so it looks like there is a dot next to the cursor. the problem is of course minor but persistent and i found no way i could get rid of it...

 

Do you have the latest mouse driver - Did you try changing the cursor to another one.

 

the mouse driver came with XP so it must be up to date. the problem is not only with a mouse cursor but with a blinker cursor as well -- like the one that appears when you type something in anyh editor or DOS prompt.