What is going on with my computer? (Details follow)

Maybe you have something leaning on a key. Perhaps a key is stuck. If you have a laptop, it might be a battery issue. (When one of my laptops started to act peculiar, it turned out the battery had swelled a little, and a new battery fixed it.)

@jonfreed…..Even if it is a new computer?? It might need a new battery?

I don’t think it is a key. The cursor looks wonky….it shakes a bit and seems to be interfering with the typing, too…?

Its a laptop isn’t it? Your probably touching the touch pad thing as you type. There should be a setting in the driver to prevent this sort of thing.

I suspect that it’s the touchpad. If you’re not used to working with one, or if the one you have is very sensitive, then sometimes just brushing “too close” to it with a thumb or (more likely) palm of the hand as you type relocates the cursor and resets the “insert point”, or “selects” blocks of text for “insert and replace.”

You can manually disable the touchpad if you don’t use it at all. My Logitech wireless mouse disables it (also in Windows 7) automatically when Windows boots and senses that the mouse is present (and guesses, I suppose, that I want it to take precedence over the touchpad).

I’m guessing that the computer is a laptop, and either you’re not used to the touchpad, or had it disabled previously (or less sensitive).

I have to say touchpad too. I do that all the time on my laptop :p

The touchpad is very sensitive….much more so than my previous laptop. I use it a lot.

What can I do (and where would I find the adjustment panel?) Can I just tone the sensitivity down?

Thanks so much…..lurve coming to all!

Find it under Control Panel / Mouse (Windows 7). It will be one of the tabs there, and whether you can control its sensitivity will depend on whether that’s even an option for it. (I’ve never seen it, but I wouldn’t rule it out.)

With other laptops where I’ve not been able to disable it totally (because I never use it) I’ve had to learn to keep my wrists off the fore part of the machine, and my thumbs in the air.

At first, I started not to answer your question, because the other answers seem to fit your problem. But, then I remember a time when I had the same problem. I attempted to correct the wandering mouse with no luck. I finally ran a virus scan and was shocked to learn I had over 800 viruses on my computer. The viruses were running the show on my pc. One morning, as I turned on my computer, I was greeted with a big red Trojan on my screen, He had taken over my computer. I attempted several virus programs, but the Trojan had my computer lock, stock and barrel.

I politely disconnected everything and took my computer out in the woods and shot it to death.

I then bought another computer and bought the best virus system I could find.

Run a virus scan and see what happens.

Same thing has happened to me a few times!! And the culprit was the keyboard itself….This happened on my laptop and i’m guessing yours is a laptop too…The keyboard circuit had somehow messed up(Most budget laptops come with crappy keyboards like mine).....if you can find a usb connected keyboard you can check this out by removing the laptop keyboard cable(it’s easy to remove the laptop keyboard) and then connecting the other one to see if it still shows the symptoms. If it doesn’t, just replace your keyboard and you’re good to go!! Hope this helps for someone reading this thread…