5 ms·

I have OP's problem (drifting trackpoint) with an x230. To be honest I had never looked it up or saw it mentioned before, I just kind of live with it. Sometimes

I have OP's problem (drifting trackpoint) with an x230. To be honest I had never looked it up or saw it mentioned before, I just kind of live with it. Sometimes the cursor randomly starts drifting and I have to play a little with the trackpoint to get it to stop. It is occasionally annoying but doesn't bother me that much. In any case, it is the x230, so looks like the problem isn't exclusive to newer models.

pengaru 6y ago
This makes me wonder if it has to do with the OS/driver configuration. I've always run the trackpoints as PS/2 mice in Linux which is basically the legacy compatibility mode, and I don't use the touchpad. So I'm not running the Synaptics driver at all, and I do remember when I tried using the Synaptics driver on the X250 @ my previous employer it was very frustrating until I got rid of that and got things back in old-fashioned PS/2 mouse emulation mode. I wasn't having problems with drift, it was more click behavior and acceleration curves being very wonky. But maybe if you're driving things at the Synaptics driver level there's a tighter integration and the OS/driver plays a bigger part in recentering the trackpoint. I'm just speculating here. They've all been bulletproof used as PS/2 mice.
numpad0 6y ago
Kind of inherent to its nature, pressure sensing device like TrackPoint has too much precision and dynamic range to be hardware zeroed. Instead the firmware takes average value over time and regard that as the current neutral, and if your finger is on it longer than that integration period, the sum of mechanical imperfection, planetary gravity, heat, whatever noise AND weight of your finger all combined becomes a new zero point. The solution is to lift your finger off of TrackPoint and letting it wander until pointer stops. There’s nothing mechanically wrong or damaging in and around that, again, just how it is. Same as how digital kitchen scales or body weight scales need to calibrate itself upon powerup, except TrackPoint does it on the fly.
- blodkorv 6y ago
  The problem with doing that is that it sometimes can drift for several minutes and thats super annoying when you are working on something, it really slows down you productivity.

pengaru 6y ago

This makes me wonder if it has to do with the OS/driver configuration. I've always run the trackpoints as PS/2 mice in Linux which is basically the legacy compatibility mode, and I don't use the touchpad. So I'm not running the Synaptics driver at all, and I do remember when I tried using the Synaptics driver on the X250 @ my previous employer it was very frustrating until I got rid of that and got things back in old-fashioned PS/2 mouse emulation mode. I wasn't having problems with drift, it was more click behavior and acceleration curves being very wonky. But maybe if you're driving things at the Synaptics driver level there's a tighter integration and the OS/driver plays a bigger part in recentering the trackpoint. I'm just speculating here. They've all been bulletproof used as PS/2 mice.

numpad0 6y ago

Kind of inherent to its nature, pressure sensing device like TrackPoint has too much precision and dynamic range to be hardware zeroed. Instead the firmware takes average value over time and regard that as the current neutral, and if your finger is on it longer than that integration period, the sum of mechanical imperfection, planetary gravity, heat, whatever noise AND weight of your finger all combined becomes a new zero point. The solution is to lift your finger off of TrackPoint and letting it wander until pointer stops. There’s nothing mechanically wrong or damaging in and around that, again, just how it is. Same as how digital kitchen scales or body weight scales need to calibrate itself upon powerup, except TrackPoint does it on the fly.

blodkorv 6y ago
The problem with doing that is that it sometimes can drift for several minutes and thats super annoying when you are working on something, it really slows down you productivity.