Dell Latitude C600 and C610 Broken Mouse Fix

Please link to this page if you find it useful... there are a lot of people out there with this problem, but nowhere on the web effectively describes how to fix it!

    The Dell Latitude C600 is an extremely reliable laptop. We here at Laptops Unlimited refurbish laptops and sell hundreds of used laptops. With the C600 and C610 there are very few problems. However, the wandering mouse is one of those problems. There are lots of ideas as to how to fix this, but the following is the technique we've used hundreds of times and it works nearly every time. The problem with the mouse seems to actually be a combination of to much information from the pointer stick (in the middle of the keyboard) and the touchpad. That's why cutting the ribbon that goes to the pointer stick will generally fix the problem. But, if you want to fix the problem without permanently disabling something that not supposed to be, you've come to the right place.

    To test if your used laptop is a prime candidate for this fix, just press down a little about one inch to the right of your touchpad. If this makes the mouse start wandering then this fix is the right one for you.

    On the dell c600 in order to gain access to the track pad it is necessary to remove the screen portion completely and the complete upper portion of the laptop casing as seen in figure 1 (remember to take out the hard drive and remove the two small screws inside there that hold the base to the palmrest).

Figure 1

    The problem is caused by a metal bridge that crosses over the underside
of the touch pad, when leaning on the palm rest the metal bridge can at
times come into contact with the touch pad which creates the drift
effect (see Figure 2).

Figure 2

In order to fix the problem all that is needed is to shield the bridge by using a small piece of anti-static bag (or any thin plastic lining) in between the metal bridge and the touch pad itself.

Figure 3

Figure 4 (below) shows where to place the anti-static bag. After positioning the anti-static liner as seen in figure 4, put the metal support bar (pictured while removed in figure 3) back in place, replace the 4 screws that hold it in place, then re-assemble the laptop.

Figure 4

Special thanks to Lee Young for the pictures.

Thanks for visiting, if you're in the market for a refurbished laptop, remember to keep Laptops Unlimited in mind. Note: these steps likely also work on the Dell Latitude D600 if the symptoms are similar.