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When I upgraded to Ubuntu 12.4 on my HP 32-bit Pavilion, from time to time my cursor goes berserk. Completely beyond my control, it zaps all over my workspace, homing in on clickable targets and clicking on them, wreaking havoc, opening and closing and activating at random.

In addition to the programs that came with the Ubuntu distro, I have a number of programs related to my occupation (technical editor, writer, and illustrator): ClamTk, pyrenamer, Comix, Fontmatrix, GIMP 2.8, Inkscape, KColorChooser, Calibre, Sigil, Kompozer, Audacious, Audacity, K3b, and VLC player.

I also futzed with the theme because I didn't like the black and orange one (I like blue). I wiped my drive and re-installed to no avail. I searched the web and forums and no one seems to be having this problem.

Any suggestions?

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closed as too localized by jrg♦ Dec 26 '12 at 1:48

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1 Answer

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First try a different mouse, if that dosn't work-

I think someone might be playing a prank on you, or possibility accessing your pc remotely. First check if it keeps doing it without Internet connection. Next check for any "extra" usb devices, someone can make a usb keystroke device, and can be as small as a usb drive, also if it is a desktop check for usb devices inside the computer.

I think this may be the case as you decribe the computer to be "homing in on clickable targets" and since you wiped the drive.

http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=videos/phukd-defcon-18

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I solved this problem myself. It seems that some kernels use the PS/2 hardware-interface routine in the BIOS and some kernels use their own. When I went into my BIOS and changed the PS/2 mouse from "Autodetect" to "Enabled," the problem went away. I suspect the the Ubuntu (and Fedora too) kernel and the BIOS were both hitting IRQ12. This might come up because most new motherboards still have those connectors on them expressely for PCs without USB ports being bought in quantity by corporations who don't want their employees to be able to plug in USB drives [!]. – Chuck Small Jul 4 '12 at 8:04
that is interesting, you can add your own answer for solving the problem, I think others had the same problem on the site. – mateo_salta Jul 4 '12 at 14:08

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