Touchpad on Dell 17 XPS becomes erratic

I've seen many other entries which indicate they believe this is a hardware issue. However, I've also seen suggestions that there are some software changes related to power management that could "fix" this.

In my experience, the touchpad will go hyper-sensitive at some points. It's random and it doesn't last. 

• While typing, I can see the mouse move around if my palm is touching the touchpad. I've played with the settings and sensitivity. What appears to be happening is the touchpad ignores the sensitivity and becomes super sensitive for a while. Then it goes away. I haven't been able to find anything that  causes it to happen or go away.
• When in the hypersensitive mode, mouse movement is erratic. Sometimes it clicks as I'm moving it around. Often, while I'm typing, my thumb muscle touches the pad and moves the mouse. 
• If I select "low sensitivity" it helps for a while but doesn't seem to last. 
• I've disabled the power savings on the two I2C items in Device Manager.
• Pressing down on the area on either side of the touchpad does something - so this might indicate it is indeed a hardware problem.

My device is out of warranty. To get it fixed, I have to mail it which means I lose it for over a week.  I would dearly love to fix this myself but I can't find anywhere to purchase the trackpad. Dell support says they have the part but only if I sent it in for service. Otherwise, it's out of stock.

RayB