erratic mouse movement

shane7

Hi I have a Dell Inspirion 15 3521. I bought it as re-conditioned laptop last week. The laptop is perfect except for one thing. When I place it on my kitchen table or my office desk I can't touch the cursor censor pad without the cursor jumping erratically all over the screen. Even when I slightly touch it the cursor will start to jump around the screen. I thought it was windows 10 so I brought it back to the shop and we wiped it and reinstalled windows 7. In the shop it was perfect I took it home and the same problem again. On my desk again the cursor is erratic and jumping around but as soon as its lifted of the desk and on to my lap its perfect. I have tried turning off my broadband and Bluetooth incase there was some sort of interference and nothing works. I have installed all the latest drivers, plus I have lowered the mouse sensitivity and nothing helps. Does anyone have any ideas that might help with this issue.

Robert ninja

I don't get it. Are you using a mouse or a touch pad?

shane7

Sorry its the touch pad. I'm so used to using a mouse on a pc I say that out of habit so sorry about that. So its as soon as I touch the touch pad even slightly the cursor starts to move around erratically

syklops

Its a shot in the dark, but have you got your christmas tree up?

Robert ninja

Is the touchpad clean? Get someone else to use it to see how they find it. I find touching them too lightly makes them a bit weird. Be firm.

seamus

Another shot in the dark - are they metal tables by any chance?

I'm inclined to say the erratic behaviour is more likely the placement of your hand than anything else. I find using the touchpad on a table, I tend to rest my hand on the table and edge of the laptop, and occasionally my palm will touch the touchpad and cause it to go crazy. On your lap, your hand is raised so your palm isn't touching the pad.