[Thinkpad] TrackPoint weirdness

[Phil Smith III]

Yesterday my cursor was jittering around-not the normal drift: more like someone was remoted in (which they weren't-I even dropped connection just to be sure) and had hand on mouse without trying to move it. I had been on a Skype for Business (aka Lync) call earlier, but that was done.



I tried various things, then started shutting down to reboot, see if that helped. At some point as I was closing things manually (my usual habit, though I realize it's not really necessary in most cases) the jitter stopped. No, I don't know what fixed it; things I'd closed included PowerPoint and Outlook, maybe Word.



Anyone seen this? Ideas?

[STeve Andre']

Yesterday my cursor was jittering around—not the normal drift: more
like someone was remoted in (which they weren’t—I even dropped
connection just to be sure) and had hand on mouse without trying to
move it. I had been on a Skype for Business (aka Lync) call earlier,
but that was done.
I tried various things, then started shutting down to reboot, see if
that helped. At some point as I was closing things manually (my usual
habit, though I realize it’s not really necessary in most cases) the
jitter stopped. No, I don’t know what fixed it; things I’d closed
included PowerPoint and Outlook, maybe Word.
Anyone seen this? Ideas?

From time to time I have seen strange things from the trackpoint.
Remember that IBM has said that the trackpoint's "drift" was OK?
That's because no matter what they did, it would every once in a
while become unstable for a bit, so they documented it.  Not exactly
a bug, that way.  I got an engineer to admit this over circumstances
I shall not divulge. ;-)

It's been the case for me that far less often a trackpoint would go
wild, sometimes taking a cold boot to fix it.  I know I've seen it on
1480i, A31*, T60*, T430 and W500 models.  Not sure I've seen it on
this W541.

Having said that, I have seen it go wild and then die and I'm pretty
sure that it happened to a friend as well.

The only suggestion I have is to make sure the zebra connectors for
the keyboard are well seated.

If you find out more let the list know.

--STeve Andre'

[John Bartley K7AAY [e-mail]]

Make a movement using mush pad, then eraser head issue clears. Unknown why,
but solves this on multiple ThinkPads over a decade on Windows and Linux
both.

73 & best regards de K7AAY °|||||||°

[Phil Smith III]

Post by John Bartley K7AAY ***@503bartley.com
Make a movement using mush pad, then eraser head issue clears. Unknown why,
but solves this on multiple ThinkPads over a decade on Windows and Linux
both.

Interesting! If it happens again, I will enable the mushpad (I like that name) and try that. Thanks!

The other curious part is that I've never seen this before, yet you have repeatedly, apparently. No clue what that suggests, about you or me...