Occasional issue with jerky, erratic touchpad movements

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cledude22

Occasional issue with jerky, erratic touchpad movements

Post by cledude22 »

Hi all, I am running Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon version 3.8.8 on my Asus Vivobook laptop (not using proprietary drivers) and I get this occasional issue where the touchpad is very erratic. It's sort of hard to explain... like when I try to move the mouse, sometimes it doesn't respond to the direction I'm moving it or its really jerky, just overall very erratic. It happens several times per day at completely random times but doesn't persist for too long, maybe a couple of minutes. It's not a HUGE issue, but annoying nonetheless. I read on the Linux Mint website under the Mint 19 release notes that there are touchpad issues and their solution is to install synaptics, which I did but the problem is still there. Any ideas on this? Please let me know if there is any additional information that you may need.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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ldcjmd
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Re: Occasional issue with jerky, erratic touchpad movements

Post by ldcjmd »

"install synaptics" does not help the Volunteers here, to help you. Exactly what did you change from the OEM Install?
___FYI: old laptops/notebooks often have "non-Industry-Standard" hardware (i.e. cheapest Chinese stuff they can source), and 'squirrely' poorly-coded BIOS or EFI or UEFI. Many have multiple internal HW devices 'sharing' a PCI_USB 'device-tree'... multiplexing several devices (which is foolish). Commonly the wireless adapter and the touchpad will be 'multiplexed' ... which sometimes causes lockup/freezes/et al. Every laptop/notebook is Hardware and Firmware 'unique' (sadly).
Which is WHY newest GNU/Linux flavors have many unique Issues on older PCs.
cledude22

Re: Occasional issue with jerky, erratic touchpad movements

Post by cledude22 »

ldcjmd wrote: Wed Aug 08, 2018 8:49 pm "install synaptics" does not help the Volunteers here, to help you. Exactly what did you change from the OEM Install?
___FYI: old laptops/notebooks often have "non-Industry-Standard" hardware (i.e. cheapest Chinese stuff they can source), and 'squirrely' poorly-coded BIOS or EFI or UEFI. Many have multiple internal HW devices 'sharing' a PCI_USB 'device-tree'... multiplexing several devices (which is foolish). Commonly the wireless adapter and the touchpad will be 'multiplexed' ... which sometimes causes lockup/freezes/et al. Every laptop/notebook is Hardware and Firmware 'unique' (sadly).
Which is WHY newest GNU/Linux flavors have many unique Issues on older PCs.
But its not an older laptop though. It is the Asus Vivobook F510UA which is no older than 1 year.
rui no onna

Re: Occasional issue with jerky, erratic touchpad movements

Post by rui no onna »

By any chance, do you experience the jerky, erratic touchpad movements when you're plugged in to power?

I had a similar issue with my ThinkPad and for my laptop, it apparently was due to insufficient grounding exacerbated by heat (~90°F room temp). Putting the notebook on my lap while I was using it alleviated the issue a little bit.
cledude22

Re: Occasional issue with jerky, erratic touchpad movements

Post by cledude22 »

rui no onna wrote: Thu Aug 09, 2018 4:16 pm By any chance, do you experience the jerky, erratic touchpad movements when you're plugged in to power?

I had a similar issue with my ThinkPad and for my laptop, it apparently was due to insufficient grounding exacerbated by heat (~90°F room temp). Putting the notebook on my lap while I was using it alleviated the issue a little bit.
Yea I did read about that but I have the issue when both plugged in and on battery though.
Hank New Bee
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Re: Occasional issue with jerky, erratic touchpad movements

Post by Hank New Bee »

Do you by chance have the application "Psensor" installed to monitor system temperatures? On my computer, this app causes jerky mouse movements, and had to be removed. I noticed the same thing while running "sensor" from the command line in terminal, but only when "sensor" was active. I can run sensor in terminal to check temps, then close terminal and mouse movement is back to normal. Didn't check touch pad.
cledude22

Re: Occasional issue with jerky, erratic touchpad movements

Post by cledude22 »

Hank New Bee wrote: Wed Aug 15, 2018 2:10 pm Do you by chance have the application "Psensor" installed to monitor system temperatures? On my computer, this app causes jerky mouse movements, and had to be removed. I noticed the same thing while running "sensor" from the command line in terminal, but only when "sensor" was active. I can run sensor in terminal to check temps, then close terminal and mouse movement is back to normal. Didn't check touch pad.
Hi there, sorry for the late reply but I do not have Psensor installed.
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