Touchpad freezing lessened with Toshiba driver

I've had problems with my M4400's Alps touchpad sporadically freezing/locking up, ever since I received it a week ago. I saw the same problems in Windows XP, Vista, and in Windows 7. I did some searching around and found others also reporting problems. I was about ready to return my laptop (instead of submitting to a potential troubleshooting quagmire), but I found one suggestion that seemed worth trying.

I removed the Dell touchpad drivers (Driver Version: 7.2.101.216, Driver Date: 12/21/2008) and installed one from Toshiba's web site (Driver Version: 7.2.303.107, Driver Date: 9/19/2008). After installing the Toshiba driver, I disabled all of the touchpad "extras", including browser support, scrolling, tapping, and inertial movement. It seems to have lessened the sporadic freezing (the jury is still out on whether it improved the input lag). I have had one freezing/tracking problem since installing the Toshiba driver, but overall it seems improved over the Dell driver. I'd be very interested in knowing if it helps anyone else also having problems with their touchpad freezing up.

 

I just tried out that driver on my new E6500 and noticed the trackpad stutter/freeze for the first time. I didn't experience it on the Dell driver but I haven't had the machine long enough yet. I had a Dell Studio 1537 before that had the same issue, so I'm thinking it's a random ALPS thing.

Does the browser region and the tap zones work for you on that driver? I tried to enable both but it doesn't seem to work with my E6500.

 

Thx for trying it out, tubby. I haven't tried the tap zones or any of the advanced features, I normally only use the touchpad for pointing (and disable all of the extra stuff). I'm going to see if maybe I can find an older Alps driver (from Dell?) to try, to see if it helps.

 

Update: I tried the version 7.0.101.7 Dell drivers, but it was all of five minutes before they showed the same problems I originally had (major touchpad freezing). I'll keep looking.

 

I finally experienced the stutter/lag on the ALPS touchpad using the latest Dell driver. It's version 7.2.101.216. It only lasted 5 seconds and I haven't been able to repeat it again, but I did notice it.

 

I have this problem and it's really starting to annoy me. I am using driver 7.2.101.216.

I also have problems with DPC Latency spikes even though I am running all current wifi and issm drivers. I am shocked and disappointed that they would release a computer without proper drivers.

I've contacted dell support, but they don't seem to have an answer.

 

It happened pretty frequently on mine, it was somewhat easy to reproduce simply by tracing circles on my touchpad. Eventually the cursor would start wandering to the left or right, as it started skipping. It seemed to happen more often while holding down a button (it often seemed to occur while I was scrolling a browser window).

Given how obvious it was to me, and how few people seem to be reporting it, I assume it's a hardware issue. However, I also read on Dell's community forums about a guy who tried to troubleshoot this with Dell, and they replaced most of the major components (touchpad, motherboard, etc.) with no luck.

No matter how great the RGB LED display was (and it was nice under Windows 7), I couldn't "settle" for buggy input on a $2k laptop. I sent it back...Dell was very cooperative, they didn't give me a hard time at all. Kudos for that, at least.

 

I'm seeing something similar on the Latitude E6400, however here the touchpad actually freezes and necessitates a reboot. The buttons continue to work fine.

 

thats definitely weird. did you try uninstalling, cleaning the registry with a program like ccleaner, and then reinstalling the drivers?

 

Is this problem fixed? Or are we still with an annoying and nearly unusable trackpad?