Thinkpads Forum

It seems that the touchpad on this W520 (and the T510 I had before it) has some issues with interference with the touchpad against the keyboard.

I have the 'Show location of pointer when I press the Control key' in the Mouse Options checked.

Now, sometimes I'll rest my palm on the touchpad.
When I do that in a certain way (I'm not able to do it on command), when I move my hand, the touchpad evidently registers a Control key press- because it triggers the locator.
It happens on the right and left sides from either hand.

Touch Zones on the touchpad are disabled (they aren't set to simulate a control key press either).

No Control key is pressed when this happens.

I know that it isn't related to having soaked the keyboard a while back, since it's not unique to this machine. But, the T510 and W520 share the same design of the keyboard/UltraNav.

Any ideas as to why this happens?

You may be experiencing a "helpful feature":

http://en.community.dell.com/support-fo ... x#19524789
"Its the touchpad causing the issue. Go into the touchpad properties and turn off the zoom in/out feature. Basically the left side of the touchpad is configured like the right side, except instead of scrolling up and down, its set to track zooming in and out. Every time you rest your palm and you get the slightest touch on the touchpad, the keyboard registers CTRL key presses (that is how the zoom feature works)."

Someone else solved their problem (again, on a Dell machine as I recall) by installing the touchpad drivers that come directly from Synaptics' website.

Good luck!