nc6400 keyboard jumps cursor at random

I have a new Compaq nc6400 purchased by corporate. I like it except that the keyboard behavior is absolutely driving me crazy. I can be typing along, and all of a sudden my cursor has "randomly" jumped several lines above where I was typing, and inserted itself into a word, and continued with whatever I was typing there. I have to first notice it, then undo what it inserted, and move the cursor back down to where it belongs, then continue typing the word. I am a fairly quick typer, so this really disrupts my train of thought, in addition to just being really annoying.

My cube neighbor has experienced a similar problem with the same notebook, but I can't find any forum postings that describe it. His theory is that we are accidentally hitting the extra mouse button that is right under the space bar while typing. Probably true, but if so the thing must be awfully sensitive because I do not even notice that I am touching anything extra.

Is this the reason for the behavior? If so, can I safely disable these mouse buttons since I always just use the touch pad and the lower ones?

More importantly, has anyone else had this problem, or am I really crazy??!! This is not my first laptop or my first computer....

Thanks,

 

I think you problem occurs when your palm gently taps the touchpad. You can change setting for the touchpad in the Mouse settings under Control Panel. There should be an option that says Tapping and all you need to do is disable it. good luck

 

Jelloitsalive12, thanks very much for the post. However, I have just clicked thru all my Control Panel options including the Mouse one twice and I cannot find any Tapping setting or even anything that looks close to that. I am running Windows XP and currently do have admin rights.

Let me know if there's any other way to access this setting, I would be happy to try it! Thanks!

 

do you have sufficient rights to install drivers / software? If you do, you may want to download the the latest synaptics driver from synaptics.com

link is here: http://www.synaptics.com/support/drive.cfm

It should add a tab in the mouse settings in XP (think the tab is called device settings). You can then fiddle around with the sensitivity and enable/disable buttons to your hears desire.

 

Disable the "tap to click" function... my mom's Insprion e1505 was ding the same thing until the "tap to click" was disabled.

I can't stand that "feature" of touchpads, and I can't understand why it's enabled by default on most notebooks.

 

Thank-You!

This worked:My corp notebbook has been driving me crazy with erratic keyboard action. See this link to fix: http://www.synaptics.com/support/drive.cfm
Download and install this new driver. Go to Control Panel, Mouse, Go to the Device Settings Tab. The top selected device is: Synaptics Touchpad v6.2, (tjhis is the device we have installed), click "settings, click "Tapping", uncheck the box: "enable tapping". You will be asked to reset and do so. WaLa, problem fixed.


Thanks again!

Ronito

 

Thanks all for the advice. I have sent this thread to my local Help Desk to see if they have had other reports of the same...since it is clear that I am not totally crazy after all! I do have admin rights but will be a good corporate citizen (for now) and hold off installing my own drivers to see what they recommend.

 

It worked--the Help Desk installed a synaptics driver, which allowed me to see and modify the touchpad settings and the problem seems to be gone. Thanks!

 

Could someone please tell me how to accomplish this with Vista? Thanks in advance.

 

you should find the settings for sensitivity, virtual corner buttons, edge motion, etc etc... of your touchpad in Control Panel, Mouse.

if you don't see anything (extra tab for these settings) other than the default settings, then you probably don't have the touchpad driver installed.

just install the driver from HP (be sure to find the right one) and you should be set.