Drifting mouse pointer.....
 

A co-worker of mine is having a lot of problems on his Dell latitude with the mouse pointer slowly drifting to the top left corner of his screen. I used to have the problem on an old machine but luckily so far not on my new one.

It is a real pain as the mouse just moves up to the corner. When you want to navigate with it you have to fight the dam thing. It happens if he uses the touchpad or an external mouse.

Has anybody else seen this or got any ideas on how it can be worked around?

Cheers


CT-UK

I had the same problem on both a Sony Vaio (with Synaptics touchpad) and a Toshiba Tecra with Intellipoint. On the Tosh, I downloaded new drivers, then deleted the device, let Windows detect it and finally installed the new drivers it solved the problem.

On the Vaio, I let it go, because I used to have fun playing with the darn thing...

Yes, I've had it too, it seems to be that the mouse loses it's calibration, just let it go, and let it move to the top corner where it's heading, then it should be fine again.

It usually happens to people who apply too much pressure to the mousepointer, so tell him/her not to push too hard on it.

Happens to me all the time. I just let it drift and pull it back toward the center when it reaches the side of the screen until it stops moving. Doesn't seem to harm anything, and only lasts 10-15 seconds max.

Prefer the term 'slippery nipple'. Had my nipple taken off and the problem persisted, went back to Dell under warranty and hardware replaced. Still happens; it's heading to the bin. My tip would be avoid the keyboard nips in the future.

I'd prefer not to call it the "Sl....ry Ni....ple" , but that said, I had the same problem on my old TP600x. I'd let it drift and pull it back and drift and pull back and drift, etc... You get the idea. It would slow down or stop after a few repetitions. I never figured out why it was happening, but it never really bothered me that much either.

One thing I can say is that I never liked that d*mned thing in the middle of my keyboard in any instance. I definitely prefer a mouse and/or a trackpad of some form.

... One of the small new bug's ...

I had the same problem with my old latitude, before my new D600. I think the problem was more mechanical...I could manipulate it by pressing on the palm rest. I finally returned the machine.

on a D600, happens all the time
 

I have a relatively new Dell D600 with the "slippery nipple." With the latest drivers, if I let it "drift" free for about 5 seconds, it seems to notice that it is lost, recalibrates, and all is well.

I had a new apple iBook with this problem, and returned it to the manutacturer.

My brother has it on his laptop also.