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.