With a special deal from my employer I bougth 4 C610 laptops for my family. Extra was paid for the extended warranty, and I still have 265 days of it left. Now, the cursor/pointer wanders all over the screen, lodging itself in the upper right and lower left corners for as long as 10 mins at a time. Nothing specific seems to precipitate this and nothing I've tried seems to make it stop. The frustrating part is that the laptops are UNDER WARRANTY but Dell's warranty seems to be a "fix it yourself" proposition. I'm not technical. I have NO idea what "flash your bios" means; I bought the extended warranty so I wouldn't have to. If only I'd known when I bought 4 of the d*mn things that there is no Dell service. Their idea of "warrany service is people who don't know much more about laptops than I do, reading from a manual ... Does anyone know if laptops burn well in a fireplace???
Actually, you'll probably cause sudden life impairment if you burn a notebook in the fireplace. I wouldn't suggest it. ;)
Dell has step-by-step instructions on upgrading your BIOS here:
If you still have trouble, you can PM me and I can hopefully walk you through it. If all else fails, I'd be happy to take the notebooks off your hands and chuck them in the nearest incinerator if you so desire. ;)
@PorBleemo wrote:
Has anyone come to a conclusion as to what causes this? I'm having the same problem on two of my own C600s.
The jury is still out on this one, but the signs are pointing to a loose or flexed motherboard. It doesn't look like a driver/BIOS issue as Dell insists.
I tried tightening the screws on the inside (underneath the keyboard), and that seemed to work. You can read the discussion about it here:
The early style of keyboard were prone to this, the later ones not so. You could take the keyboard out, cut the cable to the touch-stick and they should be fine. ( 5 screws ) If they are still under warranty I would get onto Dell, and even if they send you the parts, they arnt hard to fit. There are on-line service books. Dont burn them, as tempting as it may be, if you sell off the parts, you still should not be out of pocket.
Some early keyboards were not right, out of the box. Take the keyboard out, and plug in an external one. This will confirm if it is the cause of the problem.
@PorBleemo wrote:
Well, being as I don't use the touchstick I just put electical tape over the contacts. Now everything works well! :)
That is a great solution...for someone who doesn't use the touchstick. And even better solution would be for Dell to make it work in the first place. ;)
Unfortunately, the electrical tape doesn't work for those of us who use the trackstick. :smileysad:
Go into your bios and select PS/2 only for the pointing device (not touchpad)
It sounds weird, but it really works ;)
Your touchpad will work, no running pointer. However the touchpad will now cease to work if you plug in a mouse into the ps/2 port.. but that makes sense ;)
international
8 Posts
0
October 18th, 2004 13:00
Actually, you'll probably cause sudden life impairment if you burn a notebook in the fireplace. I wouldn't suggest it. ;)
Dell has step-by-step instructions on upgrading your BIOS here:
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kb/en/document?DN=FA1033387
If you still have trouble, you can PM me and I can hopefully walk you through it. If all else fails, I'd be happy to take the notebooks off your hands and chuck them in the nearest incinerator if you so desire. ;)
PorBleemo
31 Posts
0
October 18th, 2004 22:00
international
8 Posts
0
October 19th, 2004 12:00
The jury is still out on this one, but the signs are pointing to a loose or flexed motherboard. It doesn't look like a driver/BIOS issue as Dell insists.
I tried tightening the screws on the inside (underneath the keyboard), and that seemed to work. You can read the discussion about it here:
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=latit_input&message.id=8814
snapohead
1.2K Posts
0
October 19th, 2004 23:00
The touchstick seems to be the source of the problem in my experience. Replacement of the keyboard generally fixes it.
AussieChris
4.2K Posts
0
October 20th, 2004 04:00
Hi,
The early style of keyboard were prone to this, the later ones not so. You could take the keyboard out, cut the cable to the touch-stick and they should be fine. ( 5 screws ) If they are still under warranty I would get onto Dell, and even if they send you the parts, they arnt hard to fit. There are on-line service books. Dont burn them, as tempting as it may be, if you sell off the parts, you still should not be out of pocket.
Regards Chris
international
8 Posts
0
October 20th, 2004 14:00
Sometimes. I've gotten two keyboard (and one motherboard) replacements and that didn't fix the problem.
AussieChris
4.2K Posts
0
October 20th, 2004 21:00
Hi,
Some early keyboards were not right, out of the box. Take the keyboard out, and plug in an external one. This will confirm if it is the cause of the problem.
Regards Chris
PorBleemo
31 Posts
0
October 20th, 2004 22:00
international
8 Posts
0
October 21st, 2004 12:00
That is a great solution...for someone who doesn't use the touchstick. And even better solution would be for Dell to make it work in the first place. ;)
Unfortunately, the electrical tape doesn't work for those of us who use the trackstick. :smileysad:
Tijnz
4 Posts
0
December 9th, 2004 17:00