I am having a weird problem on my laptop with Win7

1st off I have a Gateway model MD2614U laptop, os Win7 home 32 bit, an amd turion dual core cpu running at 2100mhz, Total physical memory is 1.25 GB, The C hard drive is a 300 GB with around 249 GB free.
The problem that I am having was things like when I click on the speaker icon in the tray to bring up the master volume. I drag the volume up with the mouse, I let go and the volume drops back to zero by it self. This was happening in other prog's whether I use my wireless mouse or the built in touch pad. Also when I am typing in Note pad, Word pad, in a word processor or typing an email (it doesn't matter what I am typing in). I would be typing and I need to run the cursor back using the cursor arrows to make a correction. Random numbers, letters and char's will show up on there own in the line I just typed. Also when I am typing the cursor will on it's own jump to a line lower down on the page and the typing will take up there in the middle of a word or a sentence.
I pulled my wireless mouse because I found that the left push button on the printed circuit board went bad from all the use. The button was sticking in the closed position. The problems went away for a while (I am using the internal touch pad for now until I can buy a new mouse). The same problems have started up again. I don't know if this is a software or a hardware problem. Sometimes pulling the power cord and the main battery and let the laptop sit that way will fix it, sometimes it won't. I can wipe (the partition) on the c drive and reinstall everything if need be. Everything on this laptop is backed up in one form or an other on cd/dvd's and flash drives. It is just a pain to wipe and reinstall everything. Anyone have some ideas. The typing problems can be madding like when I am trying to wip a report, letter or an email out at the last minute when people are waiting on me.


Steve

k opens ( am leaving this "." [this period I didn't put in the line] in the cursor just jumped up 2 lines on it's own)
A PS when I am typing a email or anything in a word box that comes up on the browser. Like on a web page and a lin a box to send an email to the web page owner. crazzy things happen when I hit the shift and something (like the @). Also the size of the words and everything on the web page shrinks in size when I hit the Ctrl key to like copy and past. Right at this point in time the laptop is working more or less ok.

Try pressing F9. That stopped the cursor jumping around when I type on forums, such as right here. Or you can adjust the touchpad sensitivity. Seems just typing can trigger moving the cursor.

I have a Toshiba Laptop. Yours may not be F9. But there should be a setting to disable touchpad while typing.