Mouse stops working randomly
 

I have been using a microsoft intellimouse with my macbook pro laptop & a 7 port usb hub, but lately it has been flaky, it sometimes just stops working, sometimes unplugging it, & then plugging back into a usb port on the hub helps, sometimes not, so I have to move it to a different usb port on the hub to get it to work. It does this most often when I turn on one of my external hard drives plugged into the hub.

It's some kind of interference. I recently had this same issue with a wireless G network card and a wireless mouse. The mouse would lock up every few minutes if that card was in use. I ended up using a different mouse, and it was fine.

You'll have to experiment with hubs, mice (mouses?), drives and other connected devices, a pair at a time, to see which two items hate one another.

It may not be an issue with the mouse, but two completely separate USB-connected items locking up all the USB ports for a few seconds.

There's too many unknowns here for me to even hazard a guess.