The Flyaway Cursor

[lovin2shop]

Grrrr, why does my laptop cursor fly all over the page? This is my second laptop to do this and it is driving me batty! It highlights the whole page randomly, moves while I'm typing, scrolls down the screen, etc. Please tell me there is something I can do to fix this?

[3blackcats]

When you are typing are your hands over the track pad?

I use a mouse most times. There is a setting on my laptop that says - turn the track pad off when the mouse is present.

[Piglet]

I feel you pain. I have no solution as DH keeps insisting "make sure you aren't touching the touchpad", but I DON'T touch it EVER!! I got very annoyed and now use our desktop. I know there are settings for the touchpad sensitivity, so maybe try that. I will be following this thread closely and hoping someone has a solution.

[hez]

My old work laptop did that and it drove me completely bananas. The IT folks told me my system board was fritzing, and thankfully I had an old enough laptop (beyond the warranty), they just replaced it for me. Not quite so easy when it's a personal laptop.

[NancyJ_redo]

I had the same thing happen on my work laptop and it drove me crazy. I finally figured out that my sleeves kept hitting the mouse trackpad thing. I had my IT dept disable the track pad since I couldn't stand it anyway and I connected a traditional mouse. Problem solved!

[BabyMine]

Have you tried going into the control panel and reset your mouse settings?

[tarabenet]

My touchpad is completely disabled because of this! Somehow, though, there is still some combo of keys that I can activate and cause weirdness like you are describing. In three years, I still haven't figured out what it is, so I haven't had a chance to totally disable it. However, I have finally figured out that when it happens, there's a combo/pattern that will shut it down. I tap the "esc" key several times, then each of the "shift" keys alternately several times, then back to "esc" a few times and the "shifts" again.

I don't know why this works. I just know that it does. My husband fusses that I'm "banging" on my keyboard, which isn't true. But even if I were, it would be better than throwing the whole stupid thing at the wall, which is what I was tempted to do before I found my "magic combo"! And yes, the same problem happens when I use his laptop too, and the same little keyboard dance corrects it.

Good luck figuring out what is causing yours and how to fix it. If you find a setting adjustment that takes care of it, will you please, please post it here or PM me about it? This is a weekly thing around here and it drives me nuts! (And, OK, yeah, maybe it does push my buttons enough to make me push my keyboard buttons with a bit more force than necessary . . . .)

[BabyMine]

Ok I asked my husband, the IT analyst, and he said that one of the possibilities is that someone could be controling your mouse remotely. He does this when he has to work on his mother's computer. She lives 400 miles away. He said it could be that or your accidently touching it with your thumb.

[wellyes]

I think everyone does that at first - it's usually due to thumbs hitting the trackpad. SO annoying!

[Fairy]

There's also a virus that behaves this way. It's really old, and likely not your problem, but I suppose if your virus defns are not up to date, it's possible.