[PLUG-TALK] Hardware Question: Cursor In Constant Motion

[Rich Shepard]

   I've not seen this before, perhaps someone here has and can provide
insight and a solution.

   The ThinkPad is running Xubuntu-7.10. Suddenly, the cursor started moving
around the screen and could not be controlled. At first it just drifted
horizontally, out of the Thunderbird window or that of any other
application. Then it started moving apparently randomly around the screen
and became difficult to see. Finally, I was able to get to the "Quit" icon
on the upper, right corner of the root window frame, but then could not find
the cursor to tell the system to shut down. Ctrl-Alt-Del killed the X
server, but then it kept recycling trying to find a GUI login it liked. Just
shut it off at this point.

   Any idea whether this is a hardware or software issue? Are there tricks of
the trade to regain cursor control when this happens? As I wrote above, I've
not seen this on any system before.

Rich

-- 
Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D.               |    The Environmental Permitting
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc.        |         Accelerators(TM)
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