You may also need to adjust the speed setting in your mouse driver.
The wheels turning backward effect usually only happens when watching film or video. It is caused by the difference between the rpm of the wheel and the frame rate of the film/video. Watch almost any film of an prop driven plane starting up and you will get a good look at this optical illusion. As the RPM's of the propellor increase it will appear that the propellor changes directions (usually more than once) as the RPM/FPS ratio keeps changing.
If the RPM/FPS ratio is in whole numbers (1:1 2:1, 300:1 10,000:1, etc) the prop will appear to stop spinning.