Cursor Flicker/Refresh Issue

[dumpedagain]

Having a real insignificant yet annoying issue. My cursor, (usually most noticeable while idle), will flicker or refresh (you can briefly see the blue processing circle above it). This causes windows or programs to appear transparent (in the background). When not in use, Desktop icons will flicker as if highlighted. The real annoyance is watching a movie or clip in fullscreen (Netflix). After a few minutes (varying) the cursor flicker will cause the window to shrink back to normal size. This can be prevented by keeping the touchpad pressed for the duration of what you are watching, but is clearly not a remedy. I think this could possibly be some conflict with either Flash, Silverlight, or IE8. I have installed the latest touchpad drivers but nothing is working. Has anyone seen and/or dealt with this before? Any advice is appreciated.

 

[TVeblen]

Just shooting in the dark here:
Try going into the touchpad controls and un-checking "tap to select" or "tap to click" (can't remember exactly what it says), and restart the computer.

Did this behavior start suddenly/recently?

 

[dumpedagain]

It did actually. I was having a ton of BSOD issues. Based upon a reccomendation from another forum member, I manually installed my wireless drivers. That solved that issue. However, in the process, I unistalled and reinstalled several programs and drivers for other components to my laptop. This is a real pain in the ass since Lenovo likes to add its own software to generic components, and for some reason, having the PC search for the newest updates will not work, meaning I have to manually search their website for changes. When I get home from work today I'll try your suggestion and see what happens.

 

[dumpedagain]

As I figured, Lenovo does not have a simple option of disregarding the tap ability of the mousepad. Is it also possible that something in the background is running, causing the progress circle to quickly appear and disappear, as if I actively selected another program (though in actuality the pc is idle)?

 

[dumpedagain]

Could this possibly be caused by some kind of registry error? Looking at my Task Manager, explorer.exe, while idle, is running at a steady 39,200K. Is this normal? My CPU usage fluctuates between 1 and 40%, with the spikes coming when the cursor briefly flickers with the processing circle. It happens literally every dozen or so seconds.

Update: Think I figured it out. PC Tools was causing some kind of conflict. It wouldn't enable my spyware or anti-virus plus Windows update as being blocked and freaking out. I finally figured this out after watching my system processes for about 5-10 minutes. I uninstalled PC Tools and reinstalled it and it seems like the flicker problem caused by the constant attempts by Windows Update attempting to "update" are done. I'll post again if the issue reappears.

 

[TVeblen]

Wow, Good detective work. Congrats.
I don't think I, or anyone else not running PCTools, could have ever guessed that.