Anyone else have the ff difficulty?

My laptop screen displaysometimes increases or decreases in type size, as if I had hit the Control and plus or minus sign. I haven't done so, however.

At first I had assumed that this might be related to moving the cursor across the screen, in the same manner that the charms will sometimes appear--and then vanish--even though I wasn't trying to call them up.

However, yesterday I was sitting, reading, and not even near the screen, when the type size/page/display size suddenly began enlarging, as if I had just hit Cntrl and the plus sign.

So I am wondering if this is the doing of my new laptop (an inexpensive Lenovo IdeaPad) or Windows 8.

If laptop, I am generally content with it, considering the price. (Best Buy special right before Black Friday.) No big deal.

But I am curious--could it be a characteristic of Windows 8?

I might add, the screen sometimes does other unexpected things--such as this browser screen twice vanishing when I was typing this, and leaving the standard Desktop screen. Keyboard sometimes sticks, so that I can't type letters. And just now, the screen/ type size has just changed, twice, as I am typing this, so that I now have a very tiny font while inputting.

I have the option to upgrade win7 to win 8 for $30 , I am happy with Win7 to be honest I was happy with XP .

Is there any benefit of getting Win8 ?

Right now, if you have a modern, reasonably fast machine and don't have a touch screen... not much of one.

If you have a touch screen, it does a lot more with it than Win7 does (assuming you have driver support.) It's also faster for some things, although it's only going to be noticeably if you have a marginally usable older machine (or if you reboot a whole lot; I don't get the obsession with boot times, but the speed-up makes some folks happy.)

If the $30 upgrade is time limited, I'd consider picking it up, just as I'd recommend to people buying a new machine to get Win8Pro and then downgrade: in a couple of years, as more software is written to require 8, you'll probably want the option to upgrade to it the, and the full retail cost of the upgrade makes a cheap upgrade now worth hedging your bets on.

Good points , I never thought about future software using Win 8 only ..

Plus if you like the current win7 GUI which it seems you do, then you can always download Classic Shell or Start8 and keep it as you have it now. The non hierarchical menu structure isn't to everyones taste and this way you can have the behind the scenes benefits with a familiar look.

I bought two of the $15 upgrades. I haven't installed them on any systems, although I have an MSDN copy from work running on one of my spare machines.

With one of the start-menu replacements (I use ClassicShell, but any of them are pretty much equivalent; Start8 seems the prettiest for those who care), and avoiding the use of a Microsoft account to sign in, there's nothing particularly bothersome about it.

I might not even exercise "downgrade" rights if I buy a new system this summer (as seems likely when the Haswells come out -- I want a better GPU than my current system has, and it seems better to wait to see what they put in comparable 14" business laptops vs. the heavier 2013-generation options rather than upgrading now to a heavier, larger option.)

Do you have a multitouch pad laptop? You very likely do, and pinch to zoom works to zoom in or out of text.

Only if you use or care about that. Lots of us don't Trackpoints forever!

ohthat is fine, but it doesn't mean it may not be the cause for the strange font changes That is all I was trying to explain/tip for cause.

My bad. Sorry

No, I use a mouse.

As I am typing this, the screen/font reduced several sizes. And per my post above, it has happened when I am not even near the screen, when the computer is not being used, just has the display on.

This a.m. I have noticed that it also does such things as making other changes, scrolling up or down without my touching the controls. A browser also switches to a blank screen without my input. On these I can't be certain that I haven't touched the wrong controls, although just now as I kayboard in this reply, it seems to scroll without my touching anything except the keys.

At first I thought the problem was simply becoming acclimated to Windows 8.

I can see that some of the events might be from an unfamiliar keyboard--but the screen scrolled just now when I was not touching ANY keys, when my hands were off the keyboard. And then again and again. To the point that I am having difficulty finishing this.

Weird.

1. Make sure if your computer has a touchpad at all, that it is OFF if you are not using it (look for a function key + f1-f12 key that will disable it). This sounds a lot like multitouch or wrists sliding across a touch pad.

2. If point 1 is already addressed and this still happens check that you don't have a keyboard key stuck. because the scroll wheel on the mouse + some keyboard keys will do the same thing.


Just a note, the same thing happened prior to windows 8 when things like this happened, so it may have more to do with getting used to new laptop, than OS.

Thanks. I am trying to disable the touchpad. One Google link indicates Fn plus F6, but my Lenovo Ideapad doesn't seem to use that method.

I considered whether the cause is simply getting used to new laptop, and can't rule out that all instances haven't been due to that, but I am sure that most of them aren't, mainly because some of them have happened spontaneously, when I am not touching either the laptop or the mouse. It is eerie to be sitting one-two feet away from the laptop, and see the screen change, and change again.

I did a virus scan after my earlier post, Windows Defender, and that came up okay, as I had assumed. New laptop after all, no roaming the Internet on unknown sites, never click on a link on an unsolicited email. IOW, no virus.

While the virus scan was running, screen went dark, as usual powersaving or hibernation or whatever, after a certain number of minutes. The laptop was on the coffee table. To my right, on the sofa, was the mouse, resting on a book. I stood up--thereby hitting the sofa cushion but not touching the book or mouse--and the laptop screen came back on. I thought, Aha! Problem is with the mouse! It is hypersensitive!

So I tested, unplugged the mouse, went back to the touchpad (which is almost unusable, it is so inflexible). However, even with the mouse unplugged, even with a dreadfully inflexible touchpad, the screen still enlarges.

Still a mystery. But I do like your idea on working with the touchpad, to disable it for awhile to see what happens. However, there is no multitouching. Absolutely sure.

Appreciate the input, and everyone's. Now--computer screen is jumping again, scrolling without being told to, text decreasing--

AARGHH! ! ! !

(Anyhow, thanks. ^ )

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/rese...DocID=HT051314

I don't know what ideapad model you have, but it may be fn+f8 as well to disable the touchpad?

If just using an external mouse, it should be possible to disable the touchpad in device manager.