Laptop mouse problem...

[beanhead07]

Hey guys.... I'm not 100% sure where this question goes so I put it in this category because I don't think it's a hardware issue, but I'm working on a guy's laptop and am very frustrated with his mouse. (the touchpad on the laptop itself) Whenever I click on the left mouse button it performs a right click. (brings up the menu that a right click would) It also does the same when I click the right mouse button. So I went into the control panel to see if the buttons had been changed. The "mouse" section of the control panel said that it's set up to perform a left click. So by all appearances it should be working, but it's not. So I downloaded the latest driver for it. (by the way, the computer is a Dell Latitude) and that didn't help either. So I uninstalled the mouse and reinstalled it and it still does the same thing. I tried setting the settings back to default and it's still performing a right click. I did make sure that it was set up for a right handed person. I even changed it to a left handed person to see if it would work the other way and it still doesn't. I'm all out of ideas...... I hope this all made sense.... any suggestions? I'm very confused right now...   

Here's the computer's specs:

Dell Latitude C400
OS: Windows XP Professional
Pentium 3 1000MHz
766 MB RAM

Thanks for any help guys!

[The Saviour]

Well...you've pretty much done all I would've done...not that this post is helping...

Why not use an external mouse?  I know it would be a pain carrying the extra mouse around...but it is an option.

[beanhead07]

Thanks the Savior, that's about the only other option I have right now. I'll suggest it to the guy and see what he says. If he doesn't want a big mouse there are always those little laptop mice I guess.  Thanks anyway!

[Calum]

It seems to me that the touchpad may just be failing, they do that eventually and laptops are not the most durable of things.
I remember my pad stopped working entirely, then worked fine after I'd given up trying to troubleshoot it.

[beanhead07]

Well guys, I tried one more thing... I took the laptop apart and disconnected the touchpad from the motherboard and found a small white spot on the contacts and so I got some alcohol and cleaned it off, gave it time to dry and put it all back together again and now it's working fine. So maybe whatever that spot was just caused it to get a mixed up connection? I don't know.... all I know is it's working again so I'm happy.  As always, thanks for all the help guys!

[The Saviour]

Glad to hear you have it working again.

Not knowing your computer ability, is probably why this was not recommended to you.  Un-sassembling and re-assembling a laptop can sometimes be a pain in the neck...especially if you don't know what you're doing.

Hopefully it will continue to perform correctly.

Thanks for letting us know.