I have a Dell Laptop and use it as my primary computer since my sucky Desktop can't render anything but a single draft copy in Poser. Anyway, for some reason when I'm typing, the cursor just up and relocates itself to another part of the text that I've already typed. It's driving me batty because I don't know if it's a setting, or if I'm accidently hitting some strange sequence of keys or something.

You're not moving your hand over the touchpad are you? Also the little mouse nib/button in the middle of the keyboard (mine is between the keys g, b and h) does it too. Also, look around for any cheeky looking person who may have connected a cordless mouse to your laptop and moving it elsewhere in the room while watching you get increasingly frustrated ;) That's a fun trick... heh heh

Yeah, when I had a laptop, I always disabled the touchpad (I forgot where the setting is to do that).

The "touchpad" is your culprit. I cannot recall just how often that thing has stuffed up something I was doing. --EK Who also uses a Dell Laptop for idle "Posering"

Maybe the answer comes from another thread about keyloggers, laptops and goverment.......

LOL, I doubt that there is anything on my computer that the government would be interested in looking at ;) Besides, judging by all the scandals in the news lately, I doubt that they have time. It's possible that it is the touchpad. The problem started with my last reformat, so it's possible the touchpad was deactivated before and turned back on when I reformatted. I'll have to look in the manual to see how to turn it off. The only time I notice it happening is when I'm trying to post, and suddenly I find myself typing within earlier text and messing up the whole thing.

You know when I notice it most often? When I'm typing fast, and I start typing any word that starts with the letter Y. Like you, or your, or something like that. Drives me crazy!!!!!!

Macros accidently set?

I don't think so ... it does have something to do with the touchpad. This is the second laptop that I've had with this problem (the other one was a Compaq). I suspect it has something to do with the way I rest my hands on the laptop when I type. I've had entire paragraphs deleted because the cursor will shift position, select a range of sentences, and then I overtype with a letter or two that I was typing later on in a paragraph. I usually use a mouse, so I suppose I could disable the touchpad. I'm sure that will make the difference.

Acadia, I know the issue.. The touchpads on the Inspiron's only last a few years before they become faulty. The membrane is moving your cursor and there is on "fix" for it. The fix I would recommend (cheap) go into your BIOS (press F2 when your machine powers up) and turn off the Touchpad. Buy a good quality laser mouse (Microsoft or Logitech or better yet, you may want to switch to a Wacom Stylus and mouse system) and go from there!

I have never used the touchpad on this laptop so I can't see why it would be worn out. When I first got it I did try it to see what it did, but after 5 minutes I hooked up my mouse. The mouse I use MS Intelli Optical mouse. I like it a great deal. I'll have to ask my nephew one day about the BIOS. I don't know anything about that stuff and I'm afraid to fiddle with it on my own. I just got done reformatting my system and having to reinstall all of my poser content from scratch (thanks to faulty CD saves). I don't want to have to do that again because I messed something up. I'll look in the manual and see if there is a more direct way to do it than to have to do the BIOS thing.

Unfortunately, even if you disable the "Touchpad (I believe it is call Synaptecs)", the problem will still exist. It may not be that you ever used your touchpad, but by resting your palms on it to type, etc causes pressure on it.. I guess to prove the point of whether this is the problem is, disable it in the BIOS, (Search Dell's WEBSITE under support, I know you will find many of complaints about it on their forums) and then plug in your optical mouse.. if the problem is gone than that's it, if not let me know..

My hands don't come close to touching the touchpad, or even resting on it. When I type, my forearms are resting on the table top that my laptop is sitting on. My wrists rest on the corner parts. Then my fingers on the keys. Regardless of the keys I touch, my hands don't come less than 1/2" within range of the touchpad on either side. For me to touch the touchpad while I'm typing, I have to move my arms so that they are positioned 90 degress in front of my body, and I don't do that because it's not comfortable. Also, it's not the actual mouse's cursor that is moved. It's the flashing cursor that you see that indicates where you are typing next. The mouse cursor remains stationary. I'm not convinced that it's the touchpad that is causing the problem. It seems more like a string of keys that I trigger. Someone mentioned macros. Is there a way to see a list of macros that are set up in Windows XP?

Yes, there is.. Open Word first, of course.. If you think it is happening to a particular document, open it up. If it is all documents continue.. 1. Goto menu ->tools ->Macro ->Macros 2. Under the macros window is where the default macros that have opened for any open documents or templates. 3. If you opened a particular document, click on the "Macros in" field and click the drop down to find the document that you might have a question on. 4. If there are anyu amcros running, just do a search in google of rhte name that appears in the Macro window. 5. Macro viruses are somewhat rare now, since most antivirus suites and Word itself block any unknown macro signatures. 6. If there are no macros listed then it's not a macro. By chance, did you run a sweep of your machine with the latest anti-virus pattern? Is it just Word that it is happening too?

This really sounds like the touchpad issue. It's pretty common for the palm of your hand near the thumb to brush against the touchpad as you type, especially when reaching for keys such as B or H. The cursor then jumps to wherever the mouse pointer is positioned. The next few times this happens, take note of the position of the mouse pointer. Is it near where your misplaced text starts appearing? If so, then you are inadvertantly activating the touchpad.

You wouldn't see the mouse pointer moving, because the momentary contact only counts as a "tap" - like clicking the mouse button. It doesn't ususally move the pointer's position.

The driver for my Dell touchpad has a setting called "Palm Check" that is designed to deal with this. It does, but with mixed results. Set too low, it does nothing, and set too high, it makes using the touchpad difficult. But you might want to check if your version of the touchpad driver has this, and if you aren't using the touchpad anyway, you can set it to the highest value. It's possible this value got reset to a lower value when you reformatted your machine. It's also possible that you had "tapping" the touchpad as a substitute for clicking the mouse button turned off, but now it's back on.

I'm pretty sure it's key strokes and not the touch pad. I wish I had a camera and someone to take a picture of my hands on my keyboard. Honest... my palms or thumbs really do not come close enough to the touchpad to touch it. There are 2 "buttons" just below the space bar. The left one doesn't do anything, and the right one opens the right click menu options. I can just reach those when my my fingers are in typing position on the keys. The touchpad is about 1/4 inch lower than that, and I have to move my thumb quite a bit for it to touch the touchpad (I have small hands and short fingers). Both of my thumbs are always positioned on the spacer bar. The inside of my wrists rest on the left and right bottom corners of the computer. For me to even brush the touchpad, I have to physically lift my arms up off the computer and reposition them. I do not do that. The only things that move when I type are my fingers and thumbs. My arms remain in place and my thumbs are always positioned on my space bar so all I have to do is press down with them, I don't have to move them from their place, so it seems unlikely that I'm touching the touchpad. I've been paying attention more to when it's happening. I swear it feels like it's a key stroke combination that I'm hitting that is doing it. Possibly something with my right hand. I'm heading to bed right now, but I'll look at the macro list tomorrow and see if there is anything there that could be causing it.

Do the three indicator lights (e.g., numlock, caplock, scroll-lock) flash before the cursor jumps or freezes? I had that problem, and my IT guy told me my keyboard and PS/2 mouse were sharing the same interrupt in my docking station. Got a USB mouse and the problem went away.

I'm closer to figuring out what is causing it. I haven't entirely put my finger on it so to speak, but as soon as the typing bar moves I stop and look at my hands. I know 100% that it's not the touch pad. It's something that happens with some key or key sequence I hit with my right hand fingers. I don't know about the lights. I don't look at the keyboard when I type so they aren't in my view. I run Adware daily, and do a virus scan weekly. I forgot to check the macro listing, so I'll go and do that now.

There is no macro listing in FireFox-Mozilla Tools area. I'm not sure, but I think this started around the time I accidently hit some key sequence and got some weird tool bar that allowed me to search the document/page. It was a FireFox one, but I don't see it in my extensions. I've managed to get that tool bar a few times, and I can close it by clicking on an X, but I have no idea what I hit that activates it. So it's possible the 2 things might be connected?