The question up front is...do i have a computer problem or a mouse problem(do i need to fix the computer or replace the mouse)

I have a 6 yr old HP desktop/windows7. and a mouse with the red light on the bottom. Periodically the mouse goes off(the light on the bottom goes off and the cursor freezes). If I control/alt/delete it allows me to "loggoff" and once i do that I can manually turn off the computer...and turnn it on and the light on the bottom of the mouse goes on and its good for a while(although it gets kind of sticky at times on the screen)

When it gets sticky, the computer makes a noise that it makes when a device shuts off....like when i turn the printer off..it gives a little 1 second tone. It makes that sound periodically as the cursor freezes for a sec and unfreezes.

Also I changed my sleep time for the computer from 30 min to 10min, because if I am doing something I want to save, and I dont want to turn the computer off....I let the computer go to sleep after 10 min...and i hit the "enter key" and the computer wakes up and the mouse lights up.

I checked to see that the drivers were up to date. But I didnt uninstall and re-install....because i worried that if I uninstalled and i couldnt re-install I would be worse off..

SO the mouse can be woken up by turining the computer on and off, or letting the computer sleep and wake up

I tried changing ports(i have 2 ports that work for the mouse)....nothing different between the 2.

so is the computer disconnecting from the mouse...or is the mouse disconnecting from the computer