Windows 7 laptop - Jittery mouse

Question

Toshiba Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit laptop.

The Synaptic touchpad that comes with the laptop has always been erratic, mouse jumps around all the time. So I disabled it (even removed the device driver from Control Panel/Mouse/Hardware) and installed a Logitech M305 wireless mouse with a nano-USB receiver. To my surprise, the mouse pointer still jumps around slightly even when I don't actually move the mouse. Just placing a finger on the touchpad usually calms it down. Moving a finger on the touchpad moves the pointer but only in the horizontal direction.

So it appears that the touchpad is still alive and contributing to the mouse pointer jumping around.

What is going on here? How can I completely disable the darn touchpad? There is a hardware on/off button at the top of the touchpad but even that doesn't do the trick. Yes, I updated the latest M305 driver from logitech.com.

Update: Uninstalling the PS/2 mouse driver in Device Manager and rebooting solves the problem but the driver comes back after a few days and so does the mouse jitter! Is this a Windows thing, we are not allowed to remove the driver?

Help? Thanks

Answer 1

It sounds like the driver is being reinstalled with Windows Updates, which explains why it "comes back after a few days." Try disabling updates or at least setting them to not automatically install.

If that doesn't work, the other option is to pull apart the laptop and unplug the trackpad.

Answer 2

Speaking as a laptop hardware tech, one way to completely isolate the touchpad itself as the source of any trouble would be to open up your laptop and disconnect the ribbon cable the touchpad connects to the motherboard with. This has its risks, but if done properly can be done quickly and easily as well as leave you /entirely/ sure of your situation. Try searching on Youtube for your laptop model + "teardown", and you may find a comprehensive disassembly video showing how quick it can be.