Twinsies - G5 "repair"

Love my G5 and was given another one from a friend when I bought his old pc for my kids. I think it's common (happened to both) that the wire starts to ride up in the sleeve and then kink, breaking the wire. I took the easiest way possible to repair and let them keep on keepin on.

Also, somewhat recently, I found there was a boom of "omg, they are the leet!", "b3st evar!" for some reason.

I cut out the bad section of wire and twisted the newly exposed sections together. Perfecto.. Also replaced the glide pads.


All done.


Bad wire inside sleeving


4 screws and cover is off


Wires stripped with finger nail. This is how fragile they are.


Twistie..twistie wrap wrap.


Testing before putting back together



Old pads


New pads.. Unfortunately, I ordered MX5 instead which is why they look off but are a huge upgrade from the 10+ yr old pads on it that were scraping the mouse pad.

This looks very much like my red MX510 from 14 years ago that I still have and use from time to time. One of the best mice ever IMO.

iwhocorrupts said:

This looks very much like my red MX510 from 14 years ago that I still have and use from time to time. One of the best mice ever IMO.

Click to expand...

Agreed. I think this came out a little later with the upgrade to laser and the weight block as the primary changes. I've not had or wanted to replace the one I have since purchased.

Got my g5 in 2005 and its still going strong, picked up a spare in 2013 just incase.

Just tore mine apart that I've owned for around a decade now, going on a few months now have started getting random disconnect/reconnect sound alerts more often even when I was away from the computer sleeping, not fun being woke around 4am!

Thought it was a bad wire but twisting and turning the cord I thought found the spot but then went away. I did end up cleaning out all the dust from inside the mouse.

I think in my case my problem was the USB connector end. Pinched the metal casing with my fingers to give the connector a better grip. So far so good.

For anyone else with this problem use a program called usbdeview from nirsoft and monitor the last plug/unplug time. I really was thinking it was my Bluetooth adapter or keyboard causing the issue but this program showed me otherwise.

Since I just had to replace the switches in my G500 (pretty sure they're the same as the G5) I thought I'd point out if you start getting issues with the left / right click you can repair the mouse and replace those switches (assuming you can work a soldering iron and desolder braid) with higher-quality Japanese Omron models (rather than the Chinese version used by Logitech) - just search digikey or mouser for part number "D2F-01F" and make sure it's not the D2F-01F-A or -A1 model since those are right/left angled versions.

The broken switch pulled from my G500 is on the left, the replacement is on the right:


The G5 / G500 are tough to replace if you're a claw-grip kind of person who's gotten used to them. I've tried the Razors and the new Logitech mice (502 / 903 / etc) and they just don't fit my hand the way the old G5 / G500 series does. Thankfully I've got my trusty G5 and a pair of G500 in reserve, so I should be set for as long as USB mice are a thing.