Toshiba laptop: mouse pointer regularly moving to corner of screen by itself

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timmmay

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#268578 27-Mar-2020 07:33

My wife has a Toshiba ultrabook laptop, about three years old. The past year or so the mouse cursor will start moving towards a corner of the screen, without her doing it. Even if you move the mouse it keeps going back there - like a device is continually giving the "move to the corner of the screen" command. It's not always the same corner, it varies. It happens a few times a week at least. Rebooting often fixes the problem, but not always.

Turning off the touchpad in software hasn't helped. I wasn't able to disable the device in device manager or BIOS. It also has one of those pointing devices in the middle of the keyboard like a pencil eraser, I couldn't disable that either.

Any ideas how to fix this? I can reinstall Windows fairly easily, which I'm going to try tomorrow. I considered opening the laptop up to disconnect the pointing devices, but that has a high risk of breaking it, which I won't do during the lockdown when we can't easily get another.

I figure it's probably a hardware fault and will probably replace it after the lockdown ends, but would be nice to get it working better or even avoid having to buy another one.

nathan

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#2447652 27-Mar-2020 07:55

It does sound like a hardware issue
It seems you should be able to disable these devices in device manager though

timmmay

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#2447655 27-Mar-2020 08:02

nathan: It does sound like a hardware issue
It seems you should be able to disable these devices in device manager though

You'd think so, but I couldn't find the devices in device manager. I managed to disable the bluetooth mouse I was using, and the logitech mouse my wife uses, but not the internal ones. I'll have another shot some time.

clinty

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#2447657 27-Mar-2020 08:07

Do you have an external keyboard?

Try disabling the keyboard - I had this happen once and it was the "pointing nub" in the keyboard that was the issue

Clint

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#2447668 27-Mar-2020 08:28

Couple of things to try.

#1 Clean the track pad - like really well.

#2 Is the screen touch screen by any chance? Clean that too.

#3 When you said you turned the track pad off, did you do this in software, hardware or device manager?

timmmay

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#2447669 27-Mar-2020 08:28

We do have an external keyboard we can try - makes the laptop into a desktop but might be an ok workaround. I'll give that a shot too thanks Clint :)

Andib

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#2447683 27-Mar-2020 08:52

This will be either a faulty trackpad or trackpoint

Take the rubber dot off the trackpoint and make sure it and the keyboard is clean, I've seen crumbs get under it and lift it enough to make it move.
If disabling the trackpad doesn't solve this, Then it likely is the keyboard/trackpoint causing this.

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Hammerer

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#2447686 27-Mar-2020 08:54

We have this happen about once a year simply because we have lots of computers with lots of pointing devices.

Device drivers can be the issue, as you mention, but most of our problems are with battery-powered wireless mice. If you have a wireless optical mouse then you could try changing the batteries or checking for a second wireless mouse connecting though Bluetooth.

If a wired mouse then a damaged mouse cable can cause this.

timmmay

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#2447691 27-Mar-2020 08:59

Andib:

This will be either a faulty trackpad or trackpoint

Take the rubber dot off the trackpoint and make sure it and the keyboard is clean, I've seen crumbs get under it and lift it enough to make it move.
If disabling the trackpad doesn't solve this, Then it likely is the keyboard/trackpoint causing this.

Thanks, I'll give that a shot.

Hammerer:

We have this happen about once a year simply because we have lots of computers with lots of pointing devices.

Device drivers can be the issue, as you mention, but most of our problems are with battery-powered wireless mice. If you have a wireless optical mouse then you could try changing the batteries or checking for a second wireless mouse connecting though Bluetooth.

If a wired mouse then a damaged mouse cable can cause this.

Thanks for the thoughts. I unplugged all external point devices and turned off all bluetooth devices, so not that in this case, but could be for others who have the problem.

jonb

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#2447694 27-Mar-2020 09:10

Not a fix to the problem but maybe a temp workaround - can leave a usb or wireless mouse connected. Even if not used and left around the back of the screen it would probably override the drifting, and the trackpad still works.

timmmay

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#2447695 27-Mar-2020 09:12

jonb:

Not a fix to the problem but maybe a temp workaround - can leave a usb or wireless mouse connected. Even if not used and left around the back of the screen it would probably override the drifting, and the trackpad still works.

Good idea, but the drifting is so severe it gets to the corner of the screen in about two seconds, so even with a USB mouse connected the machine isn't usable with a mouse.