Mouse drift on a Dell laptop

I installed Ubuntu Hardy Heron on a Dell C840 laptop for the first few days my mouse keep sticking to the sides. I had this same problem when running XP but i can disable the trackpad via control panel and via going into BIOS to stop the drifting. In Ubuntu i tried disabling it via System > Preferences > Touchpad but it didn't work. I also installed the Synaptics Driver for the touchpad but still no go.

I was about to give up when then it hit me, going into the BIOS, under pointing device the setting should be "PS/2-Touchpad" to "PS/2". This disables the trackpad and the trackpoint when a PS/2 mouse is plugged... the key word here is the "PS/2 mouse" and at that time i was using a USB mouse. So i change my mouse to a PS/2 mouse and voila! the drifting is gone. I'm not really sure if this is the cure for this problem but it worked for me.

Finally if it still doesn't work for you then i suggest you go to gimbo.org.uk and read his post on Fixing mouse drift on a Dell Latitude C600 with a Sledgehammer.

Sources:
Disable trackpad via BIOS [Ohad's Blog]