cursor going walkabout on Dell laptop

[Robert M Jones]

My daughter has a Dell Latitude D600 laptop, and just lately the cursor
has started drifting slowly around the screen on its own. Not all the
time, but quite often. No other evidence of misbehaviour. The cursor
still responds to the finger pad and the little blue movement button on
the keyboard. It behaves when in use, and then wanders when it has
nothing to do.
Windows XP Pro SP3 (Dell version), Zone Alarm free version.

I'm not familiar with laptops but fairly proficient on my desktop.

I can't persuade her to run antivirus or antispyware but I'm working
on that - I put it on but she won't pay the renewal premium so I'm going
to replace it with freebies so there is at least SOMETHING.

I will be doing a full scan etc. when I have a bit of time and access to
the machine.

Apart from malware, any other ideas please?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[VanguardLH]

My daughter has a Dell Latitude D600 laptop, and just lately the
cursor has started drifting slowly around the screen on its own. Not
all the time, but quite often. No other evidence of misbehaviour. The
cursor still responds to the finger pad and the little blue movement
button on the keyboard. It behaves when in use, and then wanders when
it has nothing to do.

Sensitivity is too high on the touchpad. If using a real mouse,
disable the touchpad as users tend to hover their palms over or touch
the touchpad which results in moving the cursor.

Also see if disabling the "acceleration" option for the mouse in
Control Panel eliminates the drifting.

 

[Robert M Jones]

Sensitivity is too high on the touchpad. If using a real mouse,
disable the touchpad as users tend to hover their palms over or touch
the touchpad which results in moving the cursor.

Also see if disabling the "acceleration" option for the mouse in
Control Panel eliminates the drifting.

Thanks. I discovered elsewhere that donwloading new ALPS drivers enables
disabling of the touchstick which cures it for some - although I haven't
worked out how yet.
It's apparently a recognised sign of senility in Dell laptops as the
thing warms up.

I'll try your fix as well.

Many thanks.

 

[Unknown]

Some have found that unchecking 'enhance pointer precision' in the pointer
options tab of the mouse
in control panel fixes this problem.

 

[Jose]

My daughter has a Dell Latitude D600 laptop, and just lately the cursor
has started drifting slowly around the screen on its own. Not all the
time, but quite often. No other evidence of misbehaviour. The cursor
still responds to the finger pad and the little blue movement button on
the keyboard. It behaves when in use, and then wanders when it has
nothing to do.

I will be doing a full scan etc. when I have a bit of time and access to
the machine.

Apart from malware, any other ideas please?

Many thanks in advance.

Here are reputable, top drawer free scanning tools:

Download, install, update and do a full scan with these free malware
detection programs:

Malwarebytes (MBAM): http://malwarebytes.org/
SUPERAntiSpyware: (SAS): http://www.superantispyware.com/

These can be uninstalled later if desired.

 

[VanguardLH]

Some have found that unchecking 'enhance pointer precision' in the pointer
options tab of the mouse

That was the option that I meant to mention (not the acceleration
option). Thanks for the reminder.