Laptop with wandering mouse pointer...

[12Footer]

IT IS DRIVING ME INSANE!!
It's a company puter, but our IT guy seams to be on permanent vacation, or werks the days i am off.
Puter is a Dell "latitude" with an attitude. The pointer has a mind of it's own. I tought by hooking-up a wireless mouse would stop it, but no...Add to this, that the touch pad actually SELECTS stuff when you manage to cursor over an icon.
I can go into the settings and disable it, but the SOB just "finds new hardware" and reinstalls it at boot-up!!
Is there any way to permanently disable the touchpad/mouse buttons/ mouse diddle-stick onboard??

 

[i386]

Re: Laptop with wandering mouse pointer...

I'm not sure about yours, but most laptops have keys that can turn the touchpad off entirely. It's commonly a combination of the blue fn key and another key. One mine it's fn + F7. The F7 key has a little blue icon on it that looks like a finger touching the touchpad.

The touch pad is supposed to make selections if you tap it. Maybe the sensitivity is up too high?

 

[valkyr]

Re: Laptop with wandering mouse pointer...

Its not the touchpad. Its that little blue (most times they are blue) thumbstick. Those things are the worst.

What is your laptop model? On dells support site you can search for the Touchpad driver and it installs a program that will let you disable the thumbstick.

 

[Bigprairie1]

Re: Laptop with wandering mouse pointer...

I have 1/2 of your problem. The sensitive touch pad key bit. I run a Dell M90 (great laptop). However I find that if I pass over a selection it will often 'take' when I didn't actually select it. Its problably some sensitivity adjustment like i386 said. It isn't enough of a problem at the moment to search out resolvement...but now I'll be more aware and interested in it.
As for the wandering mouse/icon...my Dell is fine..no problems on this issue but I have that problem on my pc at work. Probably once a day it seems to suddenly shoot off course for no apparent reason. I have no idea why. I inherited this particular pc because of its specific software...is this a virus?
Be careful letting the geeks at it. They don't understand the destination...they are just after the journey.
Good luck

 

[Esox]

Re: Laptop with wandering mouse pointer...

Its not the touchpad. Its that little blue (most times they are blue) thumbstick. Those things are the worst.

What is your laptop model? On dells support site you can search for the Touchpad driver and it installs a program that will let you disable the thumbstick.

Thats exactly what it is. If it's still under warranty get the keyboard replaced. I see this all the time at work as we have only dell laptops.

 

[Esox]

Re: Laptop with wandering mouse pointer...

Forgot to add. If you go to the mouse properties you should be able to disable the "tapping" feature of the touchpad. That will keep it from selecting things.

 

[Bigprairie1]

Re: Laptop with wandering mouse pointer...

Beauty, I'm going to check that out.
Thanks.