Prevent CURSOR JUMPING by Disabling Touchpad on Your Laptop

JTSDenver · 09 Jan 2012

Curse of the Jumping Cursor

Greetings to all who have been suffering from this insane malady. I have brand-new (Sept. 2011) DELL Inspirion N4110 laptop running Windows 7 & a Dynex wireless mouse. Disabling the Touchpad fixed it. Here's a mini Troubleshooting Guide for any who may wish to use it:

Disabling the Touchpad to Prevent Leaping & Jumping Erratic Cursor when using an external USB wireless mouse

Click the round 4-quartered Windows Start icon in the lower left menu bar.
Click Devices and Printers in the menu list.
RIGHT-Click your PC icon in the dialog box.
Click Mouse Settings. The Mouse Properties dialog box displays.
Click the Dell Touchpad tab.
Click the Touchpad icon. The Dell Touchpad dialog box displays.
Click Device Select
Under the Touchpad option, select Disable. (Items under theTouchpad Buttons option will no longer be available.)
Check the box that reads: Disable Touchpad/Pointing Stick when external USB mouse is present.
Click the Apply button. The amber light above your Touchpad and below your spacebar on your keyboard will glow.
Click OK.

NOTE: Whenever you restart your computer, it will take a while for the Touchpad to deactivate. Wait until the amber light above your Touchpad glows before you start typing again.

More Important Note: If you shut down your computer and then reboot after a long rest, it will seemingly “forget” to turn off the Touchpad. So, if you “pretend” that you’re going to turn off the Touchpad again using the above directions, it will miraculously “remember” to turn it off spontaneously and the amber light will glow. Then you’ll be able to type normally again without being tortured by an erratically leaping cursor that jumps around and randomly inserts text or highlights & deletes whole paragraphs for no apparent reason.

seavixen32 · 09 Jan 2012

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

I have a Sony Vaio with the same problem, which was also cured by disabling the touchpad.

Thanks for posting, it will probably help a lot of people.

ICIT2LOL · 01 May 2012

Hiyya JTS I am setting up a friends new HP laptop and for those with the same brand you need to go to your set up > Mouse Properties > Touch pad settings > you only need to click the tick box marked Disable internal pointing device.

I set the click and travel speed in Control Panel before going here:)

The Click Pad disable is not needed it auto greys out just leaves you with Click Pad Profiles which you don't need:)

boohbah · 01 May 2012

sometimes it can be a simple Fn and f key press to disable the trackpad, other models have a individual key for this purpose.
on the wifes lenovo laptop its Fn and F8

ICIT2LOL · 01 May 2012

boohbah said:

sometimes it can be a simple Fn and f key press to disable the trackpad, other models have a individual key for this purpose.
on the wifes lenovo laptop its Fn and F8

Thanks BB I'll keep that in the old brain box for future reference:)

boohbah · 02 May 2012

your welcome :)

GR4 · 05 May 2012

The touch pad on the sony Vaio v505 that I inherited had the same problem with erratic jumping. Static discharge is the problem from a design flaw.....I fixed the touchpad by dissassembling the computer and removing the touchpad assembly. I placed electrical tape on the underside of the top where the touchpad mounts. to the top. I trimmed the tape with a razor blade from around the opening and reinstalled the touchpad assembly. It has worked perfectly since the modification. Please post this fix. It seems there are many people with this problem.

bjclark · 07 Dec 2013

I have an HP so I couldn't follow your excellent instructions exactly. However, once I was in the mouse properties area I found a check box that allowed me to disable the touch pad when an external device was plugged in. It fixed my problem. Thanks.