Fix Your Touchpad: ALPS Drivers without Dell GUI

Best Touchpad/Trackstick Driver Solution for Dell Laptops with Non-Multitouch ALPS

I think it's pretty clear that Dell's ALPS drivers for Windows 7 suck.

True there's a spiffy GUI.
True the resume-from-standby bug is fixed.

However, there is no way to disable the touchpad while typing!


If you want better drivers than Dell has to offer and you want full functionality, go to the following website:

support.acer.com

Then choose the Windows 7 ALPS driver for the Aspire 5741G.

This was released on 3/9/2010 and has drivers dated 1/8/2010. They are more recent and more fully-functional than any other Acer, Toshiba, or Dell drivers I have found so far.

Sony also uses ALPS trackpads, but drivers are harder to find on their website, and the only recent ALPS drivers seem to be multi-touch-exclusive. Also, there is a system-verification-check on all of Sony's driver packages.


This driver is unbranded, which is nice.

You should uninstall your previous ALPS driver, reboot, then install this one with administrator privileges, then reboot.

If you are asked whether you want to run the driver files (such as apoint.exe, etc.) just uncheck "Always ask" and hit run for the 2 or 3 executables that require permissions. Note that you will never have to do this again after reboot!

This driver works well with all NON-multitouch ALPS trackpads, regardless of age. Note that the "disable trackpad while typing" option is not user-accessible in this driver, but it is permanently on, which I think is ideal. If you don't like this default, switch back to the Dell drivers. I also like that you can disable tapping on the TouchStick while typing. (this option is visible to the user if you have a TouchStick) It is somewhat unfortunate that there is no longer a speed slider separate from the Windows one and exclusive to the ALPS driver. Still, I like the simplicity and no-BS of this driver.

I guess it is also obvious that this driver works equally well with TouchStick and non-TouchStick touchpads. I have not yet tested it with multitouch pads, so I don't know if it will work, although the "Gestures" tab is present.

Note that if you try installing more recent ALPS drivers intended for multitouch pads, you will likely get a BSoD (blue-screen) and be forced to boot with "last known good configuration" then uninstall the drivers, then install these.


Barrett

 

It also makes the touchpad a lot snappier. I now like the touchpad a lot more than with dell drivers. A nice find

e1: Only it would be nice if i could set different sensitivities for my external mouse, pointing stick and touchpad...

e2: Messed around in registry and managed to reduce the sensitivity of touchpad independent from other devices. Keywords HorizSensitivity and VertSensitivity helped me.

 

Thanks!


I also managed to find a more recent and more fully-featured driver that works with our systems.

It is not quite as snappy, but it has additional features for external USB mice, does not occasionally disable acceleration (my Logitech SetPoint software might be responsible for this), and allows for changing the time delay for "disable touchpad when typing."


Thus, I recommend the Windows 7 drivers for ALPS on the Aspire 7551G. The only downside of this new driver is that it is not quite as snappy as the other Acer one I mentioned.


Sony's drivers are inaccessible since they do a system check on install, at least for recent drivers, which is the point of this exercise.
Acer has two recent drivers, the one I recommend above dated 1/08/2010, and this one, which is dated 3/23/2010.
Dell just released a new driver, which I have not tested, but it is older than the most recent Acer driver, dated at 3/03/2010. It is available on the Precision M4500 page as well as the Latitude E6510 page. I have not tested this driver.
Toshiba's most recent ALPS driver is dated 1/06/2010, and is available for the Portege M780.


Feel free to try these other drivers at your own risk. I am convinced that very recent ALPS multitouch drivers work on non-multitouch systems and no longer cause a BSoD. This is certainly the case with the Dell drivers, and I believe these latest Acer drivers also support multi-touch but do not cause a BSoD.

 

It turns out the acceleration is disabled thanks to SetPoint, not the ALPS drivers themselves. Or at least this problem is present with the last two versions I have tried.

The latest drivers I mentioned are a little too mushy for my liking after the previous iteration, and there's no momentum option, nor continuous scrolling. This is super lame.

I will give the Dell and Toshiba drivers a try next.

Also, I just realized I should be able to mine the Fujitsu website.

I could also try Acer drivers from December, but I'd rather stick to versions released this year.

 

Update:


Dell's latest for the M4500 do disable touchpad while typing, so if you're partial to the Dell drivers, go for it.

Fujitsu's latest are dated October, 2009. They should work on non-multitouch trackpads.

Toshiba's latest (1/06/2010) render non-multitouch units unbootable. Use "last good configuration" via F8 boot if you've rendered you system unbootable.

I have reverted to the 1/08/2010 drivers since the touchpad motion is "snappier." I think in reality there is less averaging/error checking/smoothing going on in the driver. Also, I verified that the tapping while typing is disabled. Continuous scroll is available. EdgeMotion is not, but I don't really use that anyway.

 

Did I mention, I wish we just had Synaptics pads on these laptops? Also, it's interesting that ALPS have stopped using the extra "advanced settings" window. They also no longer allow the user to change settings for "PalmCheck," although I believe this is modified through the "sensitivity" and "accidental tap rejection" sliders in the Dell drivers.

I wish everyone could test out what was best and release somewhat standardized drivers. I have asked [email protected] for this, but of course they redirect me to my OEM driver page. Love it.

 

This looks promising! I have a Vostro 1320 and my touchpad really sux! (using the Dell drivers right now).

It's laggy and slow and forces me to use an external mouse for most of the time.

I hope these will work with my Vostro!

Thanks!

 

@e2zippo - please report back if it does improve.

 

It did improve, the touchpad feels much more responsive than before, however the mouse cursor moves if i just hold my finger on the touch screen, hard to describe but it's wierd, but it's still better than before.

 

I turned the touchpad sensitivity down via the registry and now it twitches so less that it doesn't disturb.