Drifting mouse around the screen

Question

I've latitude C840 with WinXP and latest drivers. My mouse courser is drifting around the screen and I can control my notebook only through the keyboard. Doesn't matter if I have connected external mouse or not.   There isn't any virus etc., because it is completely new installation (I've these problems durin installation of WinXP).   Does anybody know how to solve this problem?   Thanks,

pcgeek11 · Answer

Disable the touchpad in the device manager and see if the mouse continues to drift.   pcgeek11

michaelone · Answer

I have the same problem from time to time with my Inspiron 8100.  I disabled my pointing stick and that also solved the problem.  I use the touchpad so I didn't want to disable that.

airwolf_1984 · Answer

I also had the same problem with my C840/8200/M50. I disabled the pointer stick, and the drift problem went away.

michaln · Answer

Thanks! It works and everything is now ok. Finally I can work normally with my dell :)

bigbob1239 · Answer

How did you disable it? The mouse control panel doesn't offer a method to do so?

pcgeek11 · Answer

Device manager.

gradofan2 · Answer

I can't find the switch to disable the pointing stick in device manager either.    I'm using the '04 driver, because that seemed to resolve the pointer drift issue.    I assume the the switch is in the hardware settings for the 'Mouse and other pointing devices' in the Device Manager.  I guess the '04 driver doesn't offer the option to disable the pointing stick.   So... it looks like you can resolve the issue by either rolling back the driver to the '04 driver, or disabling the pointing stick in the '05 driver.

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Drifting mouse around the screen

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