HP Forum Archive 19

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Somewhat OT, but not really. Screwy cursor behavior. Message #1 Posted by Martin Pinckney on 3 Mar 2010, 4:56 p.m. I find that,the cursor flies to somewhere else from where I want it sometimes, when I am typing in the Message box, There it just happened again! (seriously). So I get garbled text. Does this happen to anyone else?

Re: Somewhat OT, but not really. Screwy cursor behavior. Message #2 Posted by Walter B on 3 Mar 2010, 5:00 p.m., in response to message #1 by Martin Pinckney Not observed here. Any problems with your mouse?

Re: Somewhat OT, but not really. Screwy cursor behavior. Message #3 Posted by bill platt on 3 Mar 2010, 5:35 p.m., in response to message #1 by Martin Pinckney That's a laser mouse artifact. Either that, or you are tapping your foot to Aerosmith and it is joggling the mouse tail :-P Edited: 3 Mar 2010, 5:36 p.m.

Re: Somewhat OT, but not really. Screwy cursor behavior. Message #4 Posted by Norman Dziedzic on 3 Mar 2010, 8:00 p.m., in response to message #3 by bill platt I once had a similar problem. I was at the in laws who did not have wireless and went into the room with the Internet connection to do some online stuff. My cursor started acting weird and then flying all over the screen. Needless to say I was a bit freaked out. I had forgotten that I bad left my wireless Bluetooth mouse in the other room and my father in law, wondering what it was, had picked it up and was moving it around. Little did he know I was in the other room thinking my laptop had become posessed by deamons.

Re: Somewhat OT, but not really. Screwy cursor behavior. Message #5 Posted by Martin Pinckney on 3 Mar 2010, 8:58 p.m., in response to message #3 by bill platt Bill, am I correct that your first response was serious? It is a MS Compact Optical Mouse. It is a laser mouse? Is this a known problem with this type?

Re: Somewhat OT, but not really. Screwy cursor behavior. Message #6 Posted by bill platt on 3 Mar 2010, 9:45 p.m., in response to message #5 by Martin Pinckney Hi, Believe or not, I was serious, but not based on any solid proof. Merely my own observations from experience. The past few office machines I've run had optical mice, and one had a wireless mouse, and the cursor would just "jump" to a corner inexplicably at times. It has never happened that way on my wired mice (like the one I have now at home). My current mouse is optical. But it has behaved better than some others. I had a theory with the optical jump that it is caused by "confusion" due to surface texture. For instance they never work on white formica. Edited: 3 Mar 2010, 9:47 p.m.

Re: Somewhat OT, but not really. Screwy cursor behavior. Message #7 Posted by Vieira, Luiz C. (Brazil) on 3 Mar 2010, 10:38 p.m., in response to message #1 by Martin Pinckney Hi; It happens to me only when typing with the laptop, but it is not only with the message box. I am not quite sure about that, but it seems that somehow the movement of my fingers and hands over the touchpad sometimes causes the text cursor to jump, along with the mouse cursor. If I am not paying enough attention, already written words and sentences are broken by others. I considered that the touchpad sensitivity could be adjusted, but in my laptop I found no way to adjust it. It never happened when I am typing with my desktop. Cheers. Luiz (Brazil) Edited: 3 Mar 2010, 10:40 p.m.

Re: Somewhat OT, but not really. Screwy cursor behavior. Message #8 Posted by bill platt on 4 Mar 2010, 12:11 a.m., in response to message #7 by Vieira, Luiz C. (Brazil) Oh yes, there's another one. I don't have a laptop but have borrowed one from time to time. That touch-pad thing is a pain! I've had my typing "broken up" just as you say.

Re: Somewhat OT, but not really. Screwy cursor behavior. Message #9 Posted by Dave Shaffer (Arizona) on 4 Mar 2010, 12:08 p.m., in response to message #8 by bill platt Quote: That touch-pad thing is a pain! I've had my typing "broken up" just as you say. That's happened to me, too. I think it happens because your palm(s) is/are resting on or near the touch pad. It is quite a pain to look up and discover you are typing somewhere at random in your document. When I realize this, I lift my palms and keep going. Not a real comfortable position, but since I never type very much on any laptop, it's not too much of a problem. For real typing, I go to my trusty original IBM PC/AT keyboards - these rank in quality with anything else ever discussed here: I have several of them, they are approaching 30 years of age, are being used on their fifth or sixth computer, and except for a slightly flaky flip-up foot, they are perfectly functional.

Re: Somewhat OT, but not really. Screwy cursor behavior. Message #10 Posted by bill platt on 4 Mar 2010, 8:11 p.m., in response to message #9 by Dave Shaffer (Arizona) Hi Dave, Was it you that pointed out to us that the old PC/AT keayboards have a brisk ebay market? And btw WP is awesome!

Re: Somewhat OT, but not really. Screwy cursor behavior. Message #11 Posted by Dave Shaffer (Arizona) on 4 Mar 2010, 9:14 p.m., in response to message #10 by bill platt Quote: Was it you that pointed out to us that the old PC/AT keayboards have a brisk ebay market? It might have been, although I'm not sure I would have called it "brisk." I do joke, though, that they are part of my retirement plan - their value has increased since I bought them (although I haven't checked their prices lately). Quote: And btw WP is awesome! Glad you like it - I use it (in many incarnations - for both DOS and Windoze) every day.

Re: Somewhat OT, but not really. Screwy cursor behavior. Message #12 Posted by Antonio Maschio (Italy) on 4 Mar 2010, 12:22 p.m., in response to message #1 by Martin Pinckney This happens to my wife's optical wired mouse when she uses our living room's white marble surfaced table as the running mouse-surface. Probably the optical reflection confuses the mouse-driver. My 2 euro-cents. -- Antonio

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