BleepingComputer.com: Curser Problem

When I type my curser keeps jumping to different locations. I'll be typing out my homework and all of a sudden my curser has jumped up to a few sentances. It's a realy pain as I'm doing a lot more work on my laptop now as I'm doing a web design course. This makes my HTML work a lot harder.

Thanks

Does your laptop have a Synaptic touch pad? Is it possible that you are accidentally 'bumping' it while you type? I have the same problem if I don't pay enough attention to what I am doing. I am assuming that the cursor jumps to the point on the screen where the mouse cursor is located?

We bought a used Dell laptop with a touchpad and it also has a feature in the middle of the keys called a "mouse stick." If the laptop is lifted without completely even support on the bottom, or if you put pressure on the laptop, the mouse cursor will fly off and it usually requires at least one reboot to get it back under control. Sometimes it does this even without any pressure on the laptop. It is very frustrating.

No one has been able to give me an answer to why this happens, or a solution to fix it. I have found that disabling the mouse stick and touchpad features completely helps the problem. But that makes it so I have to use a plugin mouse, and when that fails I have to use the keyboard alone to re-enable the mouse stick or touchpad to fix that problem, and then I'm back at square 1 with the possessed pointer.

I think one person did suggest completely disabling the mouse stick and/or touchpad at the hardware level. In theory, that should fix the problem, but then you will be stuck using a plugin mouse with the laptop.

I hope your problem is more like what groovicus said, because that is much easier to fix. haha! The fact that it just jumps a few lines instead of keep going forever seems to imply that the touchpad is just being brushed. I have done that many times!

Good luck.

I used to suffer from the same thing. Annoying.
It was due to the touchpad being hit just enough to move the cursor to the least expected location.
In the computer Help screens and the pdf manual I found a key combination which is a toggle. So I can disable the touchpad until needed. On my computer it's Function+F9, but every computer is different.

I'm sure I'm not brushing it. I've been very careful since I had that problem. I think it's most likely pressure being exerted onto the pad as I rest my hands on the keypad. I think I read about that before. I guess I'll have to disable the touchpad. I think just a simple proccess delete could do it. That way if you have a problem with your plug in mouse you could just restart the computer. Maybe it could be made even shorter with a macro. Anyway, thanks for the help. I'll try and removing or disabling the touch pad settings and see how it goes.

I've disabled my toucpad and haven't had any problem since. Thanks for the advice. I've only got one more request about this. Is there a way to set some kind of shortcut, like a macro? Sometimes my mouse fails and so I can't do anything with my computer but reset it.

Hey, Chris. I had that same issue. I didn't have a solution for a long time, and it really discouraged me from using my laptop except for emergencies.

Just recently, however, I figured something out that usually fixes the problem, even enough that I keep my touchpad enabled. I was almost embarrassed that I hadn't thought of it sooner.

What I do is go to Control Panel and open the Mouse settings. Then, on the Device Settings tab I have a Reset Device button. Activating that button almost always resets the mouse pointer and it starts working correctly again. On the rare occasions that it doesn't work right away, it usually works after waiting a while.

I don't know if your mouse settings interface has the reset device option. If so, you can access it fairly easily with keyboard keys alone. You can also set up a shortcut somewhere to make it even easier to access (I put a shortcut right on my main Start menu).

In case you don't know, you can toggle between open windows/applications by holding the Alt key and then pushing the Tab key to select the window you want. Using this, if your mouse pointer freezes up or starts misbehaving, you can easily switch to the open mouse settings window and activate the reset button to regain control! (Use the Tab and arrow keys to cycle through the various tabs, links and buttons--this works in browser windows as well.)

Again, this solution may totally depend on whether your own mouse settings has a handy reset option. My mouse software was provided by Dell, the maker of my laptop. There may be other compatible apps out there that will work if your current settings don't have the needed function.

I hope this helps! Please feel free to ask any other questions you have. I am happy to help any way I can.

Take care, Chris.

You might consult the owners manual. It's possible a function key combination will turn it on and off