Mouse pointer locked up. Anyway to reset mouse while Xserver is running?

[Nigel Henry]

I've always had problems with my A4 Tech Trackball mice. Actual model is.
Scroll 4D Trackball (Model WWT-13). There were drivers for win98, and ME on a 
floppy, but it said no support for XP. Some years ago before I moved to linux 
I tried it on XP, and from time to time the pointer would lock up, and needed 
a hard reset.

Moving onto Linux. On my FC2 install the mouse pointer locks up on the odd 
occasion. logging out, and back in doesn't fix the problem, nor does a 
reboot, only shutting down completely, then booting up again fixes the 
problem.

I've just built a new machine, and am getting the same mouse pointer lockups. 
With the Archlinux install on this machine, I was upgrading packages 
overnight, and the following morning the mouse pointer was locked up. I save 
the history from KDE's Konsole, as I like to see what was updated, so plugged 
in my USB tablet, and thankfully got control of the mouse pointer, and saved 
the history.

tKubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) is also on this new machine, and I have Boinc 
running on it. leaving it running overnight, the following morning, again I 
find the mouse pointer locked. Now I have no monitor for the new machine, so 
have a KVM switch, which is sharing monitor, mouse, kbd, with another 
machine.

The other machine is not booted up, and feeling annoyed I just click on the 
Dlink KVM switch to change machines. The KVM switch can't switch to the other 
machine, as it's not running, so reverts back to the one with the stuck mouse 
pointer, which after the mouse behaving a bit strangely for some time, 
settles down, and the mouse is now working ok.

It does appear that when the mouse pointer locks up on these mice, it needs a 
complete reset, like remove the power from the mouse, then restore it.

Question:

Any suggestions as to possible command line incantations that will reset the 
mouse, while X is up and running?

Thanks for any help on this annoying problem.

Nigel.