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Laptop cursor jumping all over the place
Thread poster: Ines Burrell
Ines Burrell
Ines Burrell  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:09
Member (2004)
English to Latvian
+ ...
Oct 29, 2008

Hi there,

I bought a new HP laptop in September, had trouble with the mouse pad (or whatever it is called for laptops) as it took serious banging on the said pad to open any appliances or links. The shop exchanged the laptop for another one and although sometimes it is still sticking overall the pad was fine.

However lately the cursor has started to jump all over the place which is extremely annoying when you are typing the text and it just goes and adds a couple of le
... See more
Hi there,

I bought a new HP laptop in September, had trouble with the mouse pad (or whatever it is called for laptops) as it took serious banging on the said pad to open any appliances or links. The shop exchanged the laptop for another one and although sometimes it is still sticking overall the pad was fine.

However lately the cursor has started to jump all over the place which is extremely annoying when you are typing the text and it just goes and adds a couple of letters somewhere else on before you have even noticed it. I even got into embarrassing situation when I sent a query to a client regarding a word I have never seen before only to realize afterwords that my laptop is responsible for it.

Any suggestions, ideas, anybody? I really would not want to send it back for repairs as it would mean good two weeks without a laptop for me and I wiped everything off my old laptop (and gave it to my husband to play with) so it would take me ages to cram all the software back again on the old one.

Thanks,
Ines
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Rodolfo Raya
Rodolfo Raya  Identity Verified
Local time: 07:09
English to Spanish
Watch your fingers Oct 29, 2008

Hi,

I had a similar experience and it turned out to be my fault.

Cursor jumped and text became corrupt all the time until I discovered that I was touching the touchpad with my thumbs by accident while typing.

Regards,
Rodolfo


 
Eleni Makantani
Eleni Makantani
Greece
Local time: 12:09
English to Greek
+ ...
Well, I'm not sure... Oct 29, 2008

...if I understand correctly, but this is my suggestion:

I think that the "cursor-jumping" issue is typical of laptops (it happened to me when I started using my friend's laptop and later my own first laptop), because users who are not familiar with that kind of equipment and use the laptop keyboard for typing, accidentally touch the pad and move the cursor to another place on the screen. The problem gets less and less annoying when we get used to using the laptop and goes completel
... See more
...if I understand correctly, but this is my suggestion:

I think that the "cursor-jumping" issue is typical of laptops (it happened to me when I started using my friend's laptop and later my own first laptop), because users who are not familiar with that kind of equipment and use the laptop keyboard for typing, accidentally touch the pad and move the cursor to another place on the screen. The problem gets less and less annoying when we get used to using the laptop and goes completely away if we connect and use an external keyboard and mouse (which is more comfortable and ergonomic, too). So, what I'm saying is that the problem isn't a technical one, but rather an issue of familiarity with the machine!!! Try connecting external keyboard and mouse (USB) and then you will know if there's something wrong with the computer.
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Jack Doughty
Jack Doughty  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:09
Russian to English
+ ...
In memoriam
Try plugging a mouse in Oct 29, 2008

I can never get on with those pads on laptops, I always plug a mouse in and use that - in my case I prefer a trackball mouse, but you can get the more conventional optical mice too. Any will do as long as it has a USB plug, which most of them do nowadays.

 
tectranslate ITS GmbH
tectranslate ITS GmbH
Local time: 11:09
German
+ ...
With Jack Oct 29, 2008

Use a mouse and disable the pad. There are very nice and handy little computer mice available for laptop users.

By the way: you might not even be touching that pad - I've seen cases where the sensors in the touchpad were so sensitive that even the pressure of the hands resting on the laptop's housing while typing was interpreted as a touch of the pad and led to this problem you describe.

HTH,
Benjamin


 
Ahmet Murati
Ahmet Murati  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 11:09
English to Albanian
+ ...
Well I have bought some month ago a laptop HP 530 Oct 29, 2008

And I never had such problem. Based on the experience only viruses make to mouse to behave in such way. So, I suggest you to do a virus check. And if this wouldn't solve the situation then probably there is a hardware issue but in general I never faced such issue

 
Katalin Horváth McClure
Katalin Horváth McClure  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 06:09
Member (2002)
English to Hungarian
+ ...
I had the same problem for a while - update your drivers Oct 29, 2008

I bought an HP Pavilion laptop in June and I had the same jumping cursor for a while, that drove me nuts. I suspected that I touched the touchpad, and that's why it happened, but it wasn't the reason.
The problem went away, on its own (well, sort of). My computer does system and driver updates semi-automatically (that is, it lets me decide whether I want to install the available updates) and I remember there were a few updates over the summer. I vaguely remember one of them was an update
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I bought an HP Pavilion laptop in June and I had the same jumping cursor for a while, that drove me nuts. I suspected that I touched the touchpad, and that's why it happened, but it wasn't the reason.
The problem went away, on its own (well, sort of). My computer does system and driver updates semi-automatically (that is, it lets me decide whether I want to install the available updates) and I remember there were a few updates over the summer. I vaguely remember one of them was an update to the touch-pad driver.
So, my suggestion is to use the HP-updater or go to HP's website and check if there are updated drivers for your computer model.
(A backup of your data is always a good idea before doing any installations.)
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sivtufte
sivtufte  Identity Verified
Norway
Local time: 11:09
English to Norwegian (Bokmal)
+ ...
My jumping letters Oct 29, 2008

I experienced the same thing, suddenly my cursor would start typing at various places. Annoying is a true understatement!

My sweather touched the pad, as sitting still made me cold I pulled my sleeves down. I also noticed that late hours made me more stiff-handed. Without noticing I lowered my hands till I occasionally touched the pad. ( I run scans every night so in my case it wasn't a virus. )

However, this hardly ever happends in TagEditor - as the segment is too sh
... See more
I experienced the same thing, suddenly my cursor would start typing at various places. Annoying is a true understatement!

My sweather touched the pad, as sitting still made me cold I pulled my sleeves down. I also noticed that late hours made me more stiff-handed. Without noticing I lowered my hands till I occasionally touched the pad. ( I run scans every night so in my case it wasn't a virus. )

However, this hardly ever happends in TagEditor - as the segment is too short, and your cursor won't be able to start typing at text that's already translated.
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Christel Zipfel
Christel Zipfel  Identity Verified
Local time: 11:09
Member (2004)
Italian to German
+ ...
It's driving me nuts! Oct 29, 2008

I have had laptops "since ever", so I'm used to the touchpad and don't miss nor want to use a mouse.
I have never experienced a thing like this before, therefore it cannot depend on my not being used to the touchpad or to laptops or whatever.

I have worked with this one - or tried at least to work...:-P -, a brand new Dell Inspiron 1525, for a month now, and from the beginning the keyboard (well, I was sure until reading this thread that it was the keyboard) kept a bewilderi
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I have had laptops "since ever", so I'm used to the touchpad and don't miss nor want to use a mouse.
I have never experienced a thing like this before, therefore it cannot depend on my not being used to the touchpad or to laptops or whatever.

I have worked with this one - or tried at least to work...:-P -, a brand new Dell Inspiron 1525, for a month now, and from the beginning the keyboard (well, I was sure until reading this thread that it was the keyboard) kept a bewildering behaviour: text is cancelled and I never find it again, or a random text I have just written (some characters, two words or whatever) is put in the middle or at the beginning of the same or a previous sentence, for instance, but there isn't any rule This happens in every program that needs text input: e-mail, Office, Skype, browser, dictionaries.... and there may be additional effects, too: so when starting to write an e-mail, for example, while going on, a series of e-mails are opened for the same addressee and there I find the pieces of texts that disappear from my original e-mail; or in Skype, a new message starts in the middle of the text I'm writing...

Of course, I thought it might be a virus. Had run virus and trojan checks, without result.

I will check the drivers, anyway, like Katalin wrote. I am really at my wit's end!

[Bearbeitet am 2008-10-29 21:47]
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Ines Burrell
Ines Burrell  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:09
Member (2004)
English to Latvian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Cursed cursor Oct 30, 2008

Thank you for all the advice.

Separate mouse does not seem like a good option to me because I really feel comfortable using the touchpad and also as I have a really bad back, I work mainly from my bed where I can recline comfortably and scatter all the dictionaries and paperwork around (I just scoop it up and deposit in a drawer at the end of the day) so there is no space (or rather hard surface) for a mouse really. I will try it out though just out of curiosity.

I als
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Thank you for all the advice.

Separate mouse does not seem like a good option to me because I really feel comfortable using the touchpad and also as I have a really bad back, I work mainly from my bed where I can recline comfortably and scatter all the dictionaries and paperwork around (I just scoop it up and deposit in a drawer at the end of the day) so there is no space (or rather hard surface) for a mouse really. I will try it out though just out of curiosity.

I also paid attention to how I type and where my sleeves are at that moment and it does not look like that is the problem.

At least I found out that I am not going mad and that other people also have the same problem. I was getting rather worried actually.

I will let you know, if driver update changes anything. Right at the moment the cursor, for example, is absolutely fine and I have not even installed the updates yet, so it will take some time to determine if it works.

Ines
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TranslateThis
TranslateThis  Identity Verified
Local time: 05:09
Spanish to English
+ ...
Try this Oct 30, 2008

I found this info on another forum:

1. Go to Control Panel
2. Click on "Mouse"
3. Click on "Pointer Options"
4. Uncheck "Hide pointer while typing"
5. Click "Apply"
5. Click "OK"

It seems to have fixed my problem. Maybe it will work for you, too.


 
Christel Zipfel
Christel Zipfel  Identity Verified
Local time: 11:09
Member (2004)
Italian to German
+ ...
That' really diabolic! Oct 30, 2008

Burrell wrote:

Right at the moment the cursor, for example, is absolutely fine



Of course, I called Dell's customer service and they performed a remote control of the laptop. They made me write a text of my choice and I copied an article from a newspaper.

Maybe I wrote more slowly than usual... anyway, everything turned out to be perfect - believe it or not, the cursor didn't jump one single time! So I was told it wasn't a hardware defect, which is quite comprehensible, but since then it continued like before...

Just now I have unchecked "Hide pointer while typing" (thank you, TranslateThis, for this advice!). I will keep you posted whether it works. For the moment, it seems going fine...:-?


 
patyjs
patyjs  Identity Verified
Mexico
Local time: 04:09
Spanish to English
+ ...
Same problem. Oct 30, 2008

I wonder if there isn't something inside the keyboard. My cursor does exactly the same, suddenly inserting the text into what I already typed. I've noticed that it usually happens when I hit a specific area of the keyboard, in my case, the uiop part. Perhaps a brush and blow would do the trick.

I really relate to you working from your bed...I did too, until recently. Sitting crossed-legged while working is the most comfortable position for me but after over a year working in tha
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I wonder if there isn't something inside the keyboard. My cursor does exactly the same, suddenly inserting the text into what I already typed. I've noticed that it usually happens when I hit a specific area of the keyboard, in my case, the uiop part. Perhaps a brush and blow would do the trick.

I really relate to you working from your bed...I did too, until recently. Sitting crossed-legged while working is the most comfortable position for me but after over a year working in that position and getting very little real exercise my legs began to ache quite badly all the time. A few weeks ago I shortened the legs on my table/desk by about 10cm and now I'm much more comfortable.

Anyway, back to the problem at hand. Try to see what keys you are hitting that cause the cursor to jump. If you snack while you're working, it might just be a crumb or something.

Good luck!
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Christel Zipfel
Christel Zipfel  Identity Verified
Local time: 11:09
Member (2004)
Italian to German
+ ...
Has anyone of you guys solved the problem? Feb 3, 2009

I didn't Or at least didn't find any reasonable explanation.

I had run malware checks with different tools, changed my antivirus (but the new one found only 4 dialers and is absolutely quiet since then), unchecked the settings suggested by TranslateThis - and the cursor continued to jump around and do things just randomly.

Then I started to handle my keyboard with kid gloves, tried to type more slowly,
... See more
I didn't Or at least didn't find any reasonable explanation.

I had run malware checks with different tools, changed my antivirus (but the new one found only 4 dialers and is absolutely quiet since then), unchecked the settings suggested by TranslateThis - and the cursor continued to jump around and do things just randomly.

Then I started to handle my keyboard with kid gloves, tried to type more slowly, to hit the keys in a different manner - nothing changed. As an ultima ratio, I familiarized with the idea to reformat the whole thing, although my laptop is only 4 months old and for several weeks I didn't even use it due to this very problem. But from time to time, when I was not too much under pressure, I went back to it for the only purpose to try to discover WHEN and WHY it shows this strange behaviour; anyway, I am quite sure now, there isn't any logical relation between what I do and the cursor decides to do, unfortunately.

Finally, I connected an external keyboard, and a mouse, of course. I hate external keyboards and mice on laptops, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't my fault (which I never believed, though) or whether it was a bug of the keyboard or whatever. I thought it could be some software, maybe.

Well, with this external keyboard, everything works PERFECTLY!
No unforeseen behaviours and no surprises any more, the cursor does just what I want it do do.

But as I said, this is not a solution for me and I need therefore an integrated keyboard that works.

Now I think it is certainly possible that a laptop keyboard like any other device may malfunction, but I wonder: how come that during the remote control that Dell (the manufacturer) performed, everything went smoothly, and same thing when I tried to convice some friends and relatives that I was not completely crazy when complaining about my keyboard - well, I was not very convincing, of course, but I hope they did believe me nevertheless:-)

I will now ask for a new keyboard anyway, as the laptop of course is still under warranty, but I fear I will not be able to prove anything. I start to believe it is simply bewitched!

And this is, as I said, not a reasonable explanation.
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Ines Burrell
Ines Burrell  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 10:09
Member (2004)
English to Latvian
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
I have not solved anything either Feb 4, 2009

I tried playing with touchpad settings and almost killed the poor laptop. When I made the touch pad less sensitive the cursor did not jump any more but neither did it do anything else. To get it to press a simple button I had to bang my fingers with incredible strength. As my laptop is under warranty as well I am considering sending it back. I think there should be a way to film what is happening on screen so when it starts misbehaving again I can get some proof that it is not happening in my he... See more
I tried playing with touchpad settings and almost killed the poor laptop. When I made the touch pad less sensitive the cursor did not jump any more but neither did it do anything else. To get it to press a simple button I had to bang my fingers with incredible strength. As my laptop is under warranty as well I am considering sending it back. I think there should be a way to film what is happening on screen so when it starts misbehaving again I can get some proof that it is not happening in my head. So my next quest if for film type screenshots.Collapse


 
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Laptop cursor jumping all over the place






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