I had an issue similar to this with a DELL laptop that has a touchpad AND joystick thingy -- you could use either one. The Touchpad generally doesn't go bad and cause the cursor to jump all around but the joystick device is prone to causing this type of problem The solution or workaround is as you say--disabling the divice that is causing the problem in the settings for pointing device. In addition to causing the cursor to jump around in my case--it also often slid down to the task bar would causing erroneous items there to be "clicked" on -- like a phantom control! A Google search told me this was a fairly common problem with this particular model of DELL laptop but as soon as the joystick pointing device was disabled the problem stopped. Joan In a message dated 9/7/2010 9:43:13 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Hi Donna, I have a Gateway NV54 and use a mouse without disengaging anything; however, try going to Control Panel, Mouse, Device Settings, and tick the Disable if it shows your touchpad. HTH, Peggy