I have a Lenovo T430 and the Trackpoint is playing up. It has both a Trackpoint (nipple plus three buttons) and a Trackpad (pad plus two buttons).

It has started producing very odd symptoms when I use the Trackpoint, the pointer can be moved all over the screen but it's functionally stuck in one window. For example if it was in a terminal window the pointer stays as a text cursor and won't do any actions elsewhere on the desktop. This doesn't happen immediately but after not very long, usually just a minute or so, select text and paste seems to be what provokes it most but sometimes it just goes screwy all by itself.

When this happens the Trackpad is the same, so I'm stuck unless I switch to a console to reboot or, if I can, restarting the Window Manager sorts things out.

The Trackpoint *seems* to be acting oddly in Windows as well (dual boot to Windows 7) so it would be good if I could run some sort of basic diagnostic to see if the Trackpoint is working right but I can't find anything to do this.

Can anyone suggest a way to test if the Trackpoint hardware is working right?

(There is a good reason for wanting the Trackpoint to work, the middle button is very handy)