Synaptics Pointing Device/Touchpad acting up

My Synaptics touchpad mouse started to act up intermittently 2 weeks ago on its own after working OK for 6 months since purchase

It's an Acer Aspire One 8.9" netbook with WinXP Home

Without warning the pointer will go to the taskbar and turn into a 4 sided arrow, like in Picasa where you use that arrow to move pix around in a collage, and it stays stuck in the taskbar as the 4 sided pointer and requires a reboot to get rid of it

Today the pointer when on the desktop almost immediately turns into the 4 sided arrow and does nothing, will not move around the screen

Yesterday I reset to the defaults for the touchpad, although I have never made any changes to it, in case somehow it "changed on its own"

I searched for a new driver and I currently have the latest version

also did not inadvertently click Fn + F7, the touchpad is enabled

I do not want to use an external mouse
I like the touchpad when it was working

I didn't see any similar ? posted here
welcome any help
thanks
wintkat