Cursor jumps around when typing

I have this touchpad problem with my i3 Dell N5050 laptop since it was new, bought it about 3 yrs ago, following this blog since then. I bought 2 Dell N5010s in Aug 2011 that do not have this jumping problem, they have been working fine for years, but not the N5050 Dell I bought 6-8 months later. Something changed in Dell's quality, surprised to see that there is no fix from mfgr yet.

Had it fixed with a win7 driver that I could turn off the “touch to click” option on the pad. Then I upgraded it to 8.0 and then 8.1 and had to find another touchpad driver that would work.  Am using a Alps driver instead of Synoptics that was installed by default.   Touchpad functions as mouse, but no tap to click, which don't need.  After 3yrs of daily use, my keyboard is ready for replacement.  Don't think I will buy another Dell.  Am a techy guy who has taught computer systems and write certification exams. My latest laptop was a Lenovo...sorry Dell.

Stephen714, just a word of advice. Even if you have billions of dollars never tell a sells person money is no object. People can not be trusted in so many cases and they will cheat and lie to benefit themselves. If you make them work to sell you the best for the least you have a standard for them from the beginning. And if I was you I would call and complain about that sale person. I hope you get your computer stuff worked out.

I also found out (by mistake !!) that some pad drivers (Toshiba) would work with either brand of pad. I also found out you can still have problems. I was searching for alternate drivers one day and came up with a hit on the Dell site that listed a rather generic driver for Win 8.x. Installed it and it got rid of all problems, although some features unimportant-to-me. The funny thing is that this driver was not listed along with the other drivers for both my laptops. Apparently Dell was not going to support Win 8 for these older machines, typical for all manufacturers except Toshiba. The problem here in general is that the OEMs do not generally write the drivers except possibly for the BIOS, so you are stuck.

Hi oldbaldy454, are you saying that you don't have the jumping cursor any more. I would like to find a solution because my current computer is only a year and a half and would rather not put out money right now. My reason for asking this is because I have watched my cursor jump when I wasn't typing and certainly wasn't touching the pad. So I'm wondering how to do what you were saying and if it really works. Thanks so much, Pamela

FinFan313...

Yes,  jumping around is gone... I think this is the Alps driver I downloaded.  Looks like it has been upgraded in 2013 for Win8, as when I installed it, it was the Win7 version.

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/EN/19/Drivers/DriversDetails?driverId=TDKX6&fileId=3103951108&osCode=W764&productCode=inspiron-15-intel-n5050&languageCode=EN&categoryId=IN

There is a check box with this driver to disable "touch to click"...do it and keyboard vibrations do not set off touch pad.

edited this after 1st post...

JB

thanks so much, I am going to try this right now. Pamela

JB, thanks so much I believe you have actually found a solution. I typed and typed and did not have the issue. Hopefully I won't have anymore problems. So all you people out there it appears that JB (oldbaldy) has solved the problem that dell support could not. Thanks again, Pamela

It appears this issue still appears to be unresolved... I'm having the same problem of the jumping cursor.  Have tried numerous 'suggestions' from other users on-line.  Talked in depth with Tech Support at Dell - they wouldn't help without being paid.  No solutions provided by them on their support site - tho this issue has been around for years.  I bought my Dell through Costco with an extended warranty but have to be without my computer for awhile.  Will probably have to buy a backup - will it be a Dell - think I'll go back to a Sony.

Per Dell's Tech Support suggestion, I went to their support site & did new updates to my computer.  Made the issue worse - even minimizes MS Word while typing.

Any new solutions?

Did you try the driver download that "oldbaldy" posted the link to? It is a few posts above this and it worked. I downloaded that driver yesterday and have not had the problem since. The link is on a dell site and it immediately installed and fixed the issue. Strange to me that dell support doesn't know about it (basically because they don't admit there is a problem). But as far as I can determine this has worked. Pamela

I used a link from one of the posts & updated my touch pad with the Alps driver - link provided on Dell's website.  But I spent a lot of time trying alternatives before I found one that works.  Took a lot of digging.  My jumping cursor appears to be fixed.  Thanks!

What's stopped it for me was pressing FN and F10 together and it's perfect then. I have to remember to do that each time I log on for it to be perfect.

It's nice to know if for some reason the problem occurs in the future. But the download that (oldbaldy) found that is shown in several posts before this really works. down load the driver and done.

HI, I have read with interest all the posts above.  I downloaded and installed the link suggested by oldlady but I still have the same jumping cursor.

My Inspiron15 operates on Windows 8.

thanks for any suggestion

Depending the actual reason for the jumping, there is a free utility called TouchFreeze that shuts the pad down totally while you are typing so that vibrations and pad brushing do not affect the pad. However, this probably won't work if the jumping also occurs while using the pad.

Thank you. I will need to observe if it is only when using the cursor.

The other issue I have re: cursor is that while I type the cursor starts executing macros ( I have no control over those) or the cursor/screen freezes up after the macro mode starts up.

Your help is much appreciated