Touchpad runs wild

[krinid]

My touchpad on my notebook PC occasionally goes haywire. When I touch the touchpad, the mouse pointer goes wild, moving about, clicking and double clicking things despite not having touched the mouse buttons, and (strangely enough) almost everytime, the start bar and quick launch bar get moved around - usually to the sides or top of the desktop instead of the bottom. Rebooting resolves the issue, but it occurs again. It only happens once a week or so.

When it occurs, the problem can be temporarily resolved by hitting all CTRL, ALT, SHIFT, WINDOWS KEYS at the same time several times. But it occurs again fairly quickly, within an hour or so.

I get the same results when using an external mouse.

The notebook itself is a Compaq Presario 1694, and I haven't been able to find any mouse/touchpad drivers on the Compaq website or internet for W2K (the PC came pre-installed with W98).

Any ideas what the problem might be? Or even better, how to resolve it?

Btw, this phenomenon has occurred on W98, W2K and XP. (They've all been installed at one time or another on this PC).

 

[shrubble]

If its occurred across 3 operating systems, I would guess that either the touchpad or the motherboard is fried.

"I would rather have a free bottle in front of me, than a pre-frontal lobotomy..."

-Shrubble

http://www.ishrubble.com

 

[krinid]

That isn't what I wanted to hear ! But unfortunately, you may be right.

 

[shrubble]

When you switched OS's, did you start with a clean install of each, or just update the one that was previously on there (like update from 98 to 2000 to XP)?

"I would rather have a free bottle in front of me, than a pre-frontal lobotomy..."

-Shrubble

http://www.ishrubble.com

 

[technome]

Have you tried disabling serial mouse detection. Possibly might work.

http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/13817/13817.html

 

[Batmaniac]

I've seen it before...
I think its conflict between mouse driver.
try this one:
disable every other mouse driver but the one you are using, it might work.

Rodrigo Ferreira
MCSE wannabe

 

[shrubble]

If this machine has had three different operating sytems installed on it (especially if they were fresh installs on a clea partition), it's hard for me to imagine that this could be a driver conflict, or anything software related.

I could be wrong though...

"I would rather have a free bottle in front of me, than a pre-frontal lobotomy..."

-Shrubble

http://www.ishrubble.com

 

[technome]

Come to think of it, I have seen a case where to two mice enabled, caused a problem,.. disabling one(not removing), corrected the problem.

 

[krinid]

There's only one mouse driver in use, the default MS one. Currently only W2K is installed. Each install was a fresh install on a clean partition (most recently, I had XP installed, then installed W2K on a separate partition, and once it was up and running, trashed XP [just deleted all relevant files - left the partition in tact]). However this isn't the only issue - it seems when I maximize a window, it doesn't take up the full screen - it leaves about 2cm between the bottom of the window and the top of the start bar. The desktop shows up in this area, but right clicking on it doesn't bring up a context menu. I'm baffled as to why these mouse and screen areas issues are occurring after a fresh install.

Technome,
I check out the site you mentioned, but it says, "This does not work for W2K and Later," at the bottom of the page, so I haven't tried it.

 

[Lucifudge]

it is the touchpad where it connects to the motherboard. The connector is not shielded proprly allowing interference. Call Compaq....

 

[krinid]

Lucifudge,
How certain are you about that? If that were the case, would it only happen occasionally and be cured by rebooting? I'm asking b/c my laptop is no longer under warranty and it'd probably cost a bit to fix, so I want to be at least somewhat sure it's a hardware side issue before I bring it in for repairs.

 

[Lucifudge]

i have seen it in about 300 dell latitudes. The problem starts out intermittant, ad few and far between, most of the time a reboot will temporarily fix it. Also, sometime switching from a mouse to the touchpad or touchpad to mouse will work, as will pressing to the rigth or left of the touchpad in a firm manner. The problem eventually gets more frequent and worse when it happens, and eventually it cannot be fixed with reboots.

Go to compaq's site and see if they mention it.....it si a known issue with Dell's

 

[technome]

Interference unlikely...

The amount of interference within a computer, does not grow over time. The amount of interference, is not going to change between reboots.

 

[nevets2001uk]

I've experienced this problem with a number of Dell Laptops. The solution that works for us it to download the latest BIOS revision from their website and install that.

Not sure if Compaq's are the same in this respect but I'd advise checking their site for the latest revision.

Cheers

Steve Gordon (MCP)

http://www.celebrity-hunt.co.uk

 

[iainwatt]

Not sure about the compaq laptop, does sound like a hardware issue to me too.

The Dell problem is a design fault in the laptops. You can upgrade the bios which seems to work for a very short while, but the real problem is the palm rest on the laptop itself, i.e. the plastic either side of the touch pad. I've seen so many of these laptops with the same problem and what normally happens is the touchpad and keyboard is replaced, only for the same thing to happen about 2 weeks later!!! The case/palm rest needs to be changed, Dell has a lot to answer for when it comes to this!!

We saw this on d600, now we're onto c600 and the problem is still there!!!

 

[iainwatt]

The irony!!

I typed in that last post and the next person I speak to tells me about his mouse wandering all over the screen!!! LOL