erm ... i have a feeling that it's a conflict between your laptop and your OS. Check if it does the same thing in Windows (i will assume it doesn't).
What hardware have you got? what Distro are you on? what Kernel are you running? what version of KDE?
Try opening up the KDE control panel, go into power control. Check the settings.
As for the touchpad, configure XFree86 to use it.
Honestly, try
www.google.com for info using the specs of your laptop. "toshiba satelite 2260 touchpad on Red Hat 9.0" for instance.