Laptop help needed urgently...

Phunk-E-Man · 12 Mar 2006 at 15:26

Having serious problems with my gf's laptop. Don't know too much about the system, it's an IBM thinkpad and it's going haywire.

Sometimes it works ok, other times it goes nuts...it acts as though the left mouse button is constantly being pressed, so if you hover over say a folder icon for more than a second or two, it'll open it about 20 odd times. The same if you hover over program icons, it'll open the program a multitude of times.

Right now, fingers x'd...it's behaving and allowing me to post and ask for help...so please...somebody, anybody, help!!!

BTW...i've done full virus and spyware scans and all that bumph, nothing has come up, so i'm guessing this is a hardware problem.

There is an optical USB mouse also installed, but it's been installed for months and this problem is just a recent thing.

Scythe · 12 Mar 2006 at 15:29

Does it still do it when the USB mouse isn't plugged in?
If its still under garentee/warrenty have IBM fix it, Thinkpads are usually very good laptops.It maybe possible that the internal mouse, may be broken.

Phunk-E-Man · 12 Mar 2006 at 16:15

Scythe said:
Does it still do it when the USB mouse isn't plugged in?
If its still under garentee/warrenty have IBM fix it, Thinkpads are usually very good laptops.It maybe possible that the internal mouse, may be broken.

Yup, still does it when the USB mouse is unplugged. The internal mouse is buggered, that's why there's a USB mouse installed, but even when the internal is disabled it still has the same problem.

As for the warranty, my gf needs it for Uni essays which have to be done over the next few weeks and also, I think it may also be out of the warranty period.

Phunk-E-Man · 12 Mar 2006 at 20:55

Just found this link on google which exactly describes whats happening to the laptop much better than I did...

http://www.low-cost-computing.com/ThinkPadR31MouseProblems.shtml

"The ThinkPad track point mouse exhibits very erratic behavior randomly opening many windows as if the user is continuously clicking the left mouse button. The cursor also jumps around erratically."

However the solution on the page doesnt apply to this laptop as it's a different model.

Phunk-E-Man · 13 Mar 2006 at 14:15

up in the hope someone can help with this

leezer3 · 13 Mar 2006 at 14:31

Sounds like your mouse button is sticky to me.
If you're confident in dismantling laptops, then I would suggest taking it to bits and carefully cleaning the button & its mechanisms. If not, then the best I can suggest is to keep something like a paperclip handy, and use it to lever up the button when it exhibits this behaviour.

Oh, also if you are using the internal mouse, try to keep the click in the centre of the button; Clicking on the ends of the button is likely to produce stickyness sooner if not later.

-Leezer-