This is a really annoying problem and appears to be fairly common to Sony SZ model laptops.
The mouse touchpad can randomly reverse it’s direction, so when you slide your finger left, the pointer goes right. The same is true of the vertical – slide up and the pointer goes down! Very frustrating!
Researching this it appears there are several possible causes, some due to faulty drivers and some due to faulty hardware. Here are some pointers (pardon the pun!) to help fix the problem:
1) Restart the process apoint.exe
- Open up Windows Task Manager, and terminate apoint.exe
- Go to c:\Program Files\apoint and then click on apoint.exe (the icon should look like the touchpad in the taskbar)
2) Disable Wheel Detection
- Go into Device Manager -> Mice and other Pointing Devices -> Synaptics PS/2 Port Pointing Device
- Select Properties -> Advanced Settings
- DISABLE Wheel Detection (set to Detection Disabled)
- Un-check the Fast Initialization box
If the above doesn’t help, you’ve probably got a hardware problem. If you’re feeling brave, there’s a good walkthrough of how to fix the problem here.
Another good site about the problem can be found here.