Laptop problems?

Sounds like a problem with your trackpad. When you are typing, does the palm of your hand hit or glance against the trackpad?

@zenvelo , is the trackpad the thing that you touch to move the cursor? If so, I don’t think so. I’ve been paying closer attention to that, since that crossed my mind as well. I will continue to monitor that. Just hoped someone would come along and say “Oh, all you need to do is X Y Z”!
Thx

Welcome to Fluther.

As @zenvelo has suggested, it’s definitely the trackpad and its sensitivity. One of the first things that I do with any new laptop is go into the Control Panel (in Windows) and disable the trackpad – and at the same time decrease its sensitivity so that it takes the equivalent of stabbing it with my finger to make it respond on the rare times when I do want to use it.

If it is set with “normal” sensitivity then even a hand, finger, cuff of a sleeve or other minor contact – contact that you may not even feel – can activate its functionality. That sets up the cursor movement, then the next brush or contact (or intentional movement of the mouse, when you don’t realize that a ‘select’ function has already been made), selects text, and the next key you strike on the keyboard wipes out all of that text to replace it with the symbol whose key you just pressed.

You can undo the change if you notice it right away (Ctrl-Z), but if you don’t, then the change disappears in your wake and there’s no way to get it back.

Definitely the trackpad. If you don’t use it, then disable it.

I have the same problem with my surface tablet. It’s possesed. I think it Is a virus. Edit: thanks I will disable the track pad.

@CWOTUS, so the trackpad IS that square bit that you move the cursor with? Because I noticed two other spots to either side of that which seem to serve no purpose. Anyway, thank you. I will do as you suggest.

Not knowing your computer (and just knowing the Make and Model wouldn’t help me, as I don’t track that kind of stuff very closely), it’s more than likely that the two buttons to the side that you mention can function as “left mouse button” and “right mouse button”, depending on how you set them up. (It’s also very likely that the larger trackpad itself can perform some or all of those functions based upon how you touch it. Sometimes you can double-click the trackpad itself to mimic mouse button pushes, or a “long touch” can be the equivalent of a left mouse button. These things are pretty customizable, usually.)

Like I said, it’s more of a nuisance to me, because I can’t avoid brushing it as I type on the keyboard, so I disable it to prevent the kind of inadvertent cursor moves and text selection-and-replacement that so galls me. I would much prefer the far less annoying hassle of trying to find a place to use the mouse, even at the expense of removing my hand from the keyboard sometimes. (Ideally, I prefer to use keyboard shortcuts to perform mouse operations, too, when possible.)

I had the same issue a couple times in varying forms. If I hit a specific letter the cursor would jump to where the mouse pointer was sitting. Drove me CRAZY! Another form was hit a certain letter and the mouse cursor would drift off at an angle like a bottle rocket. Drove me CRAZY!

These issues for me were all caused by viruses. Back up anything important and run Malwarebytes restart the computer and see if that does not fix your issue.

Yes I bought a cordless mouse. Things are better now.

Actually, @Cruiser, when I had problems such as you describe, where the cursor would simply drift across the screen, or certain keys (down the middle of the keyboard, primarily) just would not fire without extra hits, the problem was the membrane under the keys, which transmits the keystroke to the CPU. The company tech came to my desk, partially disassembled the machine and replaced the membrane, and everything worked fine afterward.

Though a cursor “taking off like a bottle rocket” sounds a whole lot more kinetic than the lazy drift I used to witness. So I suppose anything is possible.

@CWOTUS At the point in time I was in…I tried everything. I adjusted the mousepad settings, conducted Malwarebytes exorcisms…took off all the keys and vacuumed up all the crumbs in the keyboard and miraculously the problem was gone…whatever it really was I will never know, but I do know I will never be able to get back all those hours and swear words that this “problem” stole from me.

A thorough cleaning and vacuuming of the entire keyboard and keys before doing other steps might be a good idea since the OP mentioned that he bought the laptop used.

Different people have different habits regarding eating while using their laptops and a bunch of crumbs can really wreak havoc with a sensitive keyboard.

All good thoughts here and I’m glad to see that what is happening can be so well described by others. Though it isn’t definitive proof that I’m not insane, at least I can see that it happens to others. I haven’t had it long enough to get food crumbs into it. I assumed that the person who sold it to me had cleaned it up and all but on reflection I realize that this is a faulty assumption. Thank you everyone.