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I've had this problem on my laptop for sometime now. Anytime I try to use my touchpad it works correctly about 60% of the time in Windows, the other 40% of the time, it will jump to a random spot on the screen.

It has had this problem in Windows XP, Vista, and 7! I did clean installs of each OS. Now heres where it gets weird, when I switch to Ubuntu 9.04, my touchpad works fine 100% of the time.

Is there some way I can fix this?

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did you install the manufacturer's touchpad drivers or are you using the generic windows driver? – Molly7244 Nov 1 '09 at 23:11
@Molly: Probably Windows, I'll have to check (not at my machine at the moment). I'll try that when I get home. – Lucas McCoy Nov 1 '09 at 23:18
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I have the same problem, it seems to come from the Synaptics Drivers. I installed the latest from thier website and it's still doing. I'm also looking for a solution. I'm on Windows 7 and my laptop is a Lenovo N100. – Michael B. Nov 1 '09 at 23:49
@Linvinloud: Try playing with the settings like ChrisF suggests. It won't stop it, but will minimize the frequency. – Lucas McCoy Nov 2 '09 at 2:19
I tweaked my sensitivity in the Synaptics options, and it seems to solve the problem. – Michael B. Nov 3 '09 at 23:50

2 Answers

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It sounds like an issue with the sensitivity settings of the touchpad. By that I mean how much pressure you need to exert for it to register a touch. I'm guessing that under Windows it's very sensitive & less so under Ubuntu.

Are there any settings for this in Windows? (I don't have a laptop to check myself).

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I'm not at the machine currently but I check when I get home. – Lucas McCoy Nov 1 '09 at 23:21
Well it minimized the frequency that it will jump, but it didn't totally stop it. I would say it does it 10% of the time now, which still pisses me of when it does it, but is acceptable since I only use the touchpad when traveling. So how about an accepted answer? ;-) – Lucas McCoy Nov 2 '09 at 2:18
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Linux uses entirely different drivers from the drivers on windows, so if there's a bug in the windows driver, it (likely) won't be present on Linux. But yes, check your settings for sensitivity, acceleration, etc.

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