When I'm typing on my Dell Inspiron laptop, the curser will frequently jump and my typing appears on another part of the screen. It doesn't do it when using a wireless keyboard so it seems to be a fault in the actual laptop.

Has anyone else experienced this please? If so, did you find a cure.

I have reinstalled the operating system more than once, including upgrading from Vista to Win 7 but still have the problem.

Edited 10 June, 201016 yr by Calomax

Either you are resting your wrist in the trackpad or you are catching the pointer nipple.

Either you are resting your wrist in the trackpad or you are catching the pointer nipple.

Yep, I do this a lot on my Latitude D630 work laptop. Drives me nuts, but it's self-inflicted.

Phil

I have seen that suggested before and have made a point of definately not resting in the trackpad. I don't know what a pointer nipple is though so I probably don't have one.

Vaugely remeber my old Dell having some issues to do with the keyboard (can't remember what pricisly) but that was an Inspiron 1501. To solve them I found it was one of the graphics card processes which had to be disabled in msconfig. That's all I can remember I'm afraid, but it might be worth a go? (It was an ATI card, and the issue came/went with either the driver or the control center thing). Not very useful, but it's worth a try I guess.

Vaugely remeber my old Dell having some issues to do with the keyboard (can't remember what pricisly) but that was an Inspiron 1501. To solve them I found it was one of the graphics card processes which had to be disabled in msconfig. That's all I can remember I'm afraid, but it might be worth a go? (It was an ATI card, and the issue came/went with either the driver or the control center thing). Not very useful, but it's worth a try I guess.

Thanks very much. I'm really not keen on messing about with processes though.

Either you are resting your wrist in the trackpad or you are catching the pointer nipple.

If you don;t use the touchpad, then try disabling it via control panel and see if your problems go away..... Dirt on it can sometimes cause an issue.

You can also try reinstalling the drivers

If you don;t use the touchpad, then try disabling it via control panel and see if your problems go away..... Dirt on it can sometimes cause an issue.

or simply tapeing a bit card over it to double check that this is not the problem.

Check to see if you have a settng in the touchpad driver that disables the touchpad while typing - the behaviour does sound like the touchpad is being activated, it's quite easy to do even if you don't think you're touching it as even just a slight touch near the edge is enough to make the cursor seemingly jump.

John

Check to see if you have a settng in the touchpad driver that disables the touchpad while typing - the behaviour does sound like the touchpad is being activated, it's quite easy to do even if you don't think you're touching it as even just a slight touch near the edge is enough to make the cursor seemingly jump.

John

This is also sometime listed as "ignore accidental touches" or something similar...

Thanks everyone, I'll give the various suggestions a go and see what happens.

Well I have searched and can't find any touchpad settings. In Device Manager, I can see 2 HID Mice and one PS2 mouse but can't tell if any of them are the touchpad. I even tried disabling them one at a time but the topuchpad just kept working with the same problems

Well I have searched and can't find any touchpad settings. In Device Manager, I can see 2 HID Mice and one PS2 mouse but can't tell if any of them are the touchpad. I even tried disabling them one at a time but the topuchpad just kept working with the same problems

It sounds like you've not installed the touchpad software - you should see various settings that allow you to customise the behaviour of the touchpad otherwise the touchpad just uses the standard Windows mouse drivers.

John

It sounds like you've not installed the touchpad software - you should see various settings that allow you to customise the behaviour of the touchpad otherwise the touchpad just uses the standard Windows mouse drivers.

John

Maybe you've sussed it. I did a clean installation of Windows7earlier this year which would probably have removed any original drivers. Now all I need to do is to find the drivers and install them.

John, thank you ever so much. I've now downloaded the driver and have been able to set it to disable the touchpad when another mouse is detected. I've been able to type this so far without the curser jumping once :clap: so fingers crossed and thanks again. I owe you a :beer:

John, thank you ever so much. I've now downloaded the driver and have been able to set it to disable the touchpad when another mouse is detected. I've been able to type this so far without the curser jumping once :clap: so fingers crossed and thanks again. I owe you a :beer:

I've now been using it quite a bit over the weekend and the curser hasn't jumped once.

I'm really glad to hear that - I know how annoying it is to have the cursor jumping when typing, I'm pleased to see it was a relatively simple solution.

John

I'm really glad to hear that - I know how annoying it is to have the cursor jumping when typing, I'm pleased to see it was a relatively simple solution.

John

Just back from holiday and catching up. In fact I don't even need to disable the touchpad. The cursor is behaving properly all the time. So it wasn't me accidentally touching it but just not having the right drivers.

Thanks again.

Keith

Glad you got sorted.

This is also a symptom of a keylogger, as a neighbour had one and this was the only symptom. Was a bugger to shift as well!