Can't disable touchpad, not listed under mouse.

Hello I have a Dell Laptop, with a Intel Pentium processor, and Windows Xp. For some strange reason sometimes when I start my computer or when I am surfing the net the pointer icon will just start scrolling on it's own, and move all the way to one side of the screen. I have to reboot the computer to get it to stop. I always use a mouse. I think this has to do with the touchpad. I think it might be busted so I want to disable it. Unfortunetly all the places I have looked online says to go into control panel to mouse and disable it but touchpad is not under mouse in my control panel. I tried looking at everything keyboard, sound and audio devices, etc, I went to the device manager and I could not find anything that said touchpad under any category. I know the touchpad is still on because i can move the cursor around by touching it even with the mouse plugged in. I also tried the Function F3 trick but it did nothing.

 

Please post exact model of the Dell laptop you own.

 

My Lenovo had the same problem. I looked up the model of touchpad (Synaptic) and installed their driver. There was an option on the Synaptic control to disable the touchpad when a mouse is attached.

 

Since it's a Dell laptop, go to the Dell Support site drivers and downloads page, put in your Service Tag number (on a sticker on the laptop) or let the site determine your Service Tag number and go to the drivers and downloads tab.

Go to Mouse, Keyboard & Input Devices and download and install the driver listed there. From Control Panel, you should then be able to disable the touchpad when a mouse is connected.

On my Precision M70, it's the Alps driver.

 

I installed the new drivers and disabled the touchpad. It's all good now thank you everyone for your help, I do appreciate it.