Help! Intermittent mouse/cursor misalignment. - *(actualsize

I have a brand new Dell XPS 420 running Vista, and I have an infuriating
intermittent problem.

At first, I though the left-hand mouse button was broken, because sometimes
(only sometimes,) I'd hover the arrow over a box I wanted to click and
nothing would happen. Not only would it not "click," the box wouldn't even
highlight.

After awhile I figured out that the mouse worked fine, but I had to place
the arrowhead (sometimes) about 1/4 inch higher than the spot I wanted to
click. Then, for no apparent reason, the arrowhead's mathematical position
would become synched with it's visual position and it would come back into
alignment with the check boxes and dialog boxes and such.

This happens in most any program, at any time. Or not. It is most
frustrating in Quicken when I'm trying to reconcile my checking account - I
have to hover the mouse one line up from the one I really want to click. A
minute later, I won't have to and things will line-up again.

Other programs also exhibit this occasional problem, including Vista itself.
Dialog boxes and scroll bars are particularly troublesome - at times.

The mouse is the one that came with the machine. I tried another that is
known to be good - same issue. The mouse moves fine, there is no drift or
sticking. The arrowhead itself is not jumping. It's an optical mouse, and the
surface it sits on is not reflective. I don't suspect the mouse hardware.

Anyone have this problem? Could this be a Vista bug.

Yes/no?