My cursor will move rapidly on its own across and then off the screen to either the top right or bottom left corner when I use the keyboard on my Dell Inspiron 8500. Once it does this I can than use my wireless optical mouse or the touchpad to move the cursor around normally until I touch any key on the keyboard, at which point it does it again. To get around this I have been using an external USB keyboard and everything operates fine. Is this a software or hardware (possibly the keyboard) problem?
The computer is almost five years old and I am using XP pro as an OS.
Thanks in advance for any light that anyone may be able to shed on this.

Hello Splitwindow,

Here is a link I just answered recently with an identical problem to yours.

http://www.pchelpforum.com/periphera...ter-mouse.html

The only way to test if it is a Windows problem would be to do a full restore and see if it still does it. If after a full restore, it is still doing the same thing, that would indicate a trackpad and/or motherboard problem.

Hope that helps!

Thanks Wadd, It looks like it is the motherboard as the problem still exists after restore or booting in safe mode.

Have you tried a USB mouse? It may just be the trackpad.

I am using a wireless optical laser mouse with the sending unit plugged into usb. It is erratic on both (trackpad and external mouse). For the time being the external keyboard is working fine as I don't travel with the laptop, but I have to decide if it is worth repairing given its age and what a comparable (or better) laptop can be purchased for today.

Thanks again for for your input.