Jumping

[Griffin NoName]

A funny (odd) thing has started happening with my keyboard/typing. I'll be typing away (I almost touch type and fast (quickly)). Say I am typing a paragraph. Every few words the cursor suddenly jumps back into previous text I have typed. I only know about when the next words start appearing in the middle of the paragraph. Sometimes the effect is even more mysterious - like here, a post I am typing will suddenly post itself, before I've finished typing. It's driving me nuts. I am not doing anything differently to usual.

[Aggie]

I've had laptops get glitchy like that, especially if you put pressure on the area below the keyboard (either side of the touch pad).  I don't know of any solutions.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

I bet we're talking about a laptop (as Aggie points out) and that is the usual cause. In most laptops the mouse settings allow for more or less sensitivity to avoid it, just go to the control panel and the mouse icon and check around all the settings for the pad. The worse case scenario (I have that one myself with my new laptop) is that you can't change the setting or it doesn't work and you are forced to use an external keyboard or disable the pad and use a mouse.

[Griffin NoName]

It is a laptop. But I use a USB mouse, not the touchpad. I'm definitely not touching the actual touchpad, but rest my wrists on the parts of the laptop either side of it. I always have done. Why would it be different now? How would I make those bits less sensitive?

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

If your laptop uses Synaptics you go to you Mouse Properties|Device Settings|Settings|Pointing|Palm Check and slide the bar closer to the right/maximum. If your laptop uses Elan it must be something similar (I can't tell you because I don't have an Elan laptop at hand).

BTW, using a mouse doesn't solve your problem unless you disable/turn off the pad.

[Griffin NoName]

My touchpad is an ALPs Vaio and has no settings for "palm" sensitivity. In any case, why would it have changed? I'm not doing anything different, or changed any settings.

I have found a solution on a cnet forum:

SOLUTION:
Go to: Start>Control Panel>Mouse>Pointer Options
Click: Pointer Options Tab
Un-Check: "Hide Pointer While Typing" check box.
Click: "Apply"
Click: "OK"
PROBLEM FIXED!!!

This I could do, but would I need to when it's never been hidden before, and anyway I don't want it hidden.

[Bluenose]

Hi Griff, if you don't use the touch pad try just turning it off. If that's causing the problem it will fix it.   As for why this is happening now when it didn't before it could simply be that the plastic that you rest your wrist on has become a bit"looser" with age and is flexing enough to effectively press one of the pad buttons as you type.

[Swatopluk]

By chance I have/had the same problem with my laptop. But since I served it tea I had to use a USB keyboard anyway, so that it is of no relevance anymore. But at least I now know where that strange effect came from.

[Griffin NoName]

I do sometimes use the touchpad.

I think I've worked out what the problem is, and probably turning off the touchpad would be the only way to solve  it. If I run my fingers together, one from each side of the top edge of the pad, sliding the fingers until they meet, then at the moment they meet, middle of top edge, everything goes haywire, sometimes it does a post, sometimes it scrolls, sometimes it makes the cursor jump, it is totally weird. So although of course I don't do that with my fingers when typing, it shows there is something very wrong with the touchpad.