Cursor jumps while typing

An addition to my above entry:

It only does this if the mouse is hovered over an area where it can perform an action.  I have it hovering over the blank space next to my hotlinks in IE and I can type fine with no jumping or deleting problems.

Wendy,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.

There is a Dell nowledge base article that covers this:

Why does my cursor jump around the page while typing.

As I stated in my above post (I knew you would say that, that's why I wrote what I did), I've already done everything in that list.  I called for phone customer support.  The guy (norm  I think) had me restore to a previous date.  The problem went away for 5 minutes and now it is back again. 

My Inspiron 2600, about a year old, does the same thing.  VERY annoying, as it deletes text.  Difficult when you are typing away and all of a sudden find the cursor moved, type deleted.

I haven't tried the solutions on the referenced page-will do that first and see if it makes any difference.

Have you had any luck fixing the problem. My Insoiron is having the same thing happen with it and it is driving me crazy.

Yes-it's annoying.  This happens with my Inspiron also.

 

I've DL'd new touchpad drivers and reduced the sensitivity of the pad-we'll see.

This seems to be enough of a problem that Dell should address it further.

Where would I go to DL this?  My cursor is jumping around to.  I have Inspiron 1100 laptop. 

I am suddenly having the same problem with the cursor juming all over.  This is on my Inspiron 8100 and is also driving me nuts.  It does not happen when I iuse an external keyboard.  So far I have not had the problem with my Inspiron 8200.

I have the exact same problem. It started in the last few days. Every 10 – 20 seconds or approx 10 – 50 letters typed, the cursor is sent a “click” and the typing insert point is moved to where the mouse cursor might be at that time, even over other windows that then become active

First I thought it was my new optical USB mouse, so I tried to remove it and the drivers, I tried to install my old Dell PS/2 mouse, I even tried without a mouse, with only stick and touchpad, and all drivers removed, but it still happens. I have all the newest drivers and BIOS installed.

I hope Dell can do something as the computer is almost useless with this problem

I have fixed my problem for the moment, and here is what I had to do.  I took off my PS/2 mouse and rebooted.  I then disabled the touch pad and pointer stick and attached an optical USB mouse.  Problem went away.  So, for the moment, I am using a USB mouse only and it seems to have fixed the problem.  Let me point out that nothing dell has suggested fixes the problem, and they all seem to think that they know what the issue is and that I'm being difficult by refusing to admit that their solutions documentation is helpful.

However, in the course of trying to correct this, Dell technicians had me install the diagnostic software and run it.  I did, and it crashed halfway through.  I am seeing this as a sign of bigger problems.  I have not had a chance to run it yet again, as it takes 3 hours or so and I need this computer for work, but now, when I boot up, it takes about 5 times as long.  I have already had to replace the DVD drive on this thing.  It would be nice to be able to use the computer for a day without having to troubleshoot something.

Thank you for your solution. I have now worked a little with it and found a solution that fixes my computer. The problem was the function in the pointer stick set up where you can set up the function that a "tab" on the stick will select or select and drag. So in the set up menu I un checked this function and now everything works. I can use both touch pad and stick (but only to move) and a USB mouse.

 

rThe problem on my Inspiron 4150 is has gotten really bad and now I have just ruined a major report I was working on. I have tried all the sugested that have been posted and it still has not helped. The sad thing is my laptop is only 2 months old and can hardly use it know.

I tried the suggestion of putting the mouse cursor out of the typing area when using Wordperfect and it seemed to work well.  I did not have any jumping.  I have not yet tried it when composing e-mail messages.  That is where is was most annoying--also when using a race-scoring program.  Had this problem occurred just a bit sooner I probably would not have purchased a second Dell.  I am just waiting for it to happen in my 8200!

I had this problem when I originally got my I7000 with a Synaptics touchpad 4 1/2 years ago and like you found it incredibly frustrating.

However, Synaptics released a new driver version fairly soon after I got it (I don't think Dell pulled it into their driver set, though it could be there by now).

This driver had an option (just booting my old I7K to verify) to change the sensitivity of the pad as i think mine was moving stuff when I wafted my hands over the top of pad without touching it. A spot of fine tuning in the settings found the ideal setting for me.

Just found I've installed Windows 2000 on my I7K with out the Synaptics driver. Argh.

Anyway, hope the sensitivity setting works for you.

Best of luck,
Tony.

P.S. I'm off to download a W2K Synaptics driver right now.

Here is my experience with the touchpad.  It has no explicit profanities, but some are certainly implied.  It was mistakenly posted to the Latitude group; for some reason, that's where I end up by default these day.

Begin:

Is it just me, or is it just simply f..cking infuriating to have the insertion point zoom off to some random part of the document while I'm typing?  The spurious motion is coupled with a series of ghost-taps, because entire swaths (that's plural) of my document gets selected and overwritten by the keystrokes that I'm typing when this happens.  Since the application has only a 1-step undo, the swaths of lost text is permanently gone.  Palm checking is enabled, and sensitivity is at maximum, which is exactly the sensitivty I want to work at.  It happens often enough that I've ruled out accidental brushing of the touchpad.  The nub is disabled.  The touchpad has even been changed before.  It's been happening for years, despite system re-installs and driver updates.  The time lost is not just the time required to fix the document.  It is extremely disruptive to document composition.  Not only do you scratch your head trying to remember what you were composing (after calming down and fixing the damage); after enough of this, you learn not to trust anything, and your mind refuses to relax and continue composing.  All you want to do is put your fist through the d..mn TFT screen.  In other words, it completely f..cks up your work on more than just a temporary basis.  Sometimes I wonder if it does more harm than good to use a touchpad.  If it wasn't for CTS, I would never use it.

Had Enuf in Ottawa.

End.