Drifting Cursor

Captain Kirk

Captain Kirk

Member
Hello computer people!:)

I have a Dell Latitude.
Does anyone know why the cursor slowly drifts across the screen by itself when it is idle?

--Captain Kirk:o
 
Wolfeking,
What's up bro? Haven't heard from you for a while.

I'm not very familiar with laptops. My expertise is with desktops.
When you mentioned the track ball, at first I thought that you meant in the mouse, because that is the only mention of a track ball that I have ever heard of.

What you mean by the track ball is the 1/4" thing that is stuck between keys, in my case, between the "g,h" and "b" keys on the keyboard?

I was wondering if you were instead talking about some internal hardware that would require taking the laptop apart to dissect. I do have some hardware experience, but only with a desktop.

Thank You Kindly,

Sincerely,

--Captain Kirk
 
Captain Kirk said:
Wolfeking,
What's up bro? Haven't heard from you for a while.

I'm not very familiar with laptops. My expertise is with desktops.
When you mentioned the track ball, at first I thought that you meant in the mouse, because that is the only mention of a track ball that I have ever heard of.

What you mean by the track ball is the 1/4" thing that is stuck between keys, in my case, between the "g,h" and "b" keys on the keyboard?

I was wondering if you were instead talking about some internal hardware that would require taking the laptop apart to dissect. I do have some hardware experience, but only with a desktop.

Thank You Kindly,

Sincerely,

--Captain Kirk
Click to expand...
It is a blue (on dell) or red (on IBM) little rubber dome on the keyboard that controls the mouse. 9 times out of 10, that is the cause of the drifting mouse on these models. Just either remove the dome and leave it out, or submerse the dome in alcohol and use compressed air can to clean the area around it.
 
Thanks a lot wolfeking!

Thanks bigfellla, I didn't know the alcohol to use was isopropyl, but now that I think about it, it makes sense.

I didn't know that they used isopropyl on computers, or that you could. Though I have used it on a cassette recorder boom box.

Good idea. So it helps with dust or something? It eliminates dust then? But when the alcohol dries, it seems like the dust would still be there...

Someone said that the can of compressed air can cause your computer to rust if it is used on other computer hardware other than the keyboard. Is this true?

--Captain Kirk
 
Blast the keyboard and vents etc with compressed air (keep the can upright).

Then spray the iso-alcohol in the key board. (not too much)

Then spray again with air.
 
Oh, first spray with air, then alcohol, and then air again?

Didn't think of that. I didn't know that that was the best way to do this.

If I would have done it myself, I would have just used the air, and only applied it once.

But keyboard and vents, yea that seems pretty safe. No sense in using the air for the motherboard...

Besides, you can probably just blow out the dust on the motherboard with your mouth if you don't have a compressor anyways.

Someone said that dust can lead to overheating. Is this true?

--Captain Kirk
 
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