Laptop Mouse - has a life of its own!

I am using a Dell Latitude laptop, wih an external wired mouse. This laptop also has something called a synaptic touchpad, plus a ball in the center of the keyboard, with two buttons (right and left clicks).

The OS is Windows 2000, and I use MS Office 2003.

The problem is at times, say usually when I have been using the laptop for 20+ minutes or so, the mouse indicator (pointer) on the screen suddenly "comes alive" and veers off to the right, left, top or bottom - and off the visible screen.

At times like this, using the external mouse does not bring the pointer back. I literally struggle (no jokes!) with the ball to bring the mouse back into focus, and click on the links I need... or I use keyboard commands. This problem is really compounded when there are multiple windows open... the windows either start replicating, resizing or closing. Mostly this is so infuriating that I shut the system down... I use the power off button since because of all the activity on the screen, I am not even able to shut down.

When I start up again, things are back to normal... well at least for sometime!

Any suggestions?

gladwin

PS - I am no tech-whiz, and am something like a travelling salesman in North Africa. Hence no easy access to solutions like reinstalling the mouse driver, or OS, etc.!

(^^;?(Then, what is all available for you? North Africa! Great! I want to run PC in Pyramid or in mysterious temples in desert.)

Check the condition in device manager. Check Direct Draw in Dxdiag from tools of System Information. Disable IRQ sharing in Bios. For the moment.

P.S. Try Safe Mode and check the movement, If that's good, disable unnecessary programmes in msconfig and stop unnecessary services in admin. tools services to prevent freeze.

Honestly, it sounds like bad spyware go to www.downloads.com and search for spybot and for adaware download both, update both, and run both. just be careful not to delete the other one's files (ie: if you see a "bug" in spyware saying it's in the ad-aware folder, don't fix it) that may get rid of your problems.

Adam TT

It's a Dell thing. It doesn't like mice with that touchpad thing. I resolved a similar issue on mine, unfortunately, I forgot what exactly I did. Probably disabled the touchpad, though, I bet.

My problem didn't wait 20 minutes though. I got it as soon as I plugged a USB mouse in. So maybe it is a combination driver conflict and adware. Hmmm ...

I have the exact same problem, it appears the built-in pointing stick (a/k/a TrackPoint) in the keyboard is faulty. These devices periodically need to recalibrate themselves. When this occurs the mouse pointer usually drifts in a diagonal direction for about fifteen pixels or so. This is enough to let the device recalibrate.

Normally this might happen once a day or so (assuming several hours of usage per day). If you are seeing it more frequently, say every hour or every few minutes like I am, then the keyboard assembly with the integrated pointing stick will need to be replaced.

As an alternative, you can avoid the keys around the pointing stick altogether , or try to disable it in the BIOS. I haven't figured out which setting will actually disable it yet, but if I do I will post another reply here.

My "pointer" twitches. I don't know any better word to describe it. I have a new (got it this summer) Dell Dimension XPS, and ocasionaly the pointer will just go wild. It does this only for a second or so, so in normal use, its not that bad, but when I play a game or something, it is extremly anoying to find yourself spinning in uncontrollable circles looking at your feet. I was wondering if there is any "quik fix" solution to this, or if its a defect in the mouse, or what.