Touchpad freezing lessened with Toshiba driver

I have a year and half old 1525 inspiron with buggy touchpad. The thing is I really like the touchpad when it is working, its great, but it bugs out when i use it alot, and that is ususally when im working and really need it.

It doesnt seem like there is a good fix, I wish i would have sent mine back when it was new.

 

Grr I just got my E-6400 and I thought I was crazy so I came on here and did a search on trackpad and sure enough you guys are having the same problem. What happens with mine is the trackpad will respond minimally to my strokes so I resort to using the TrackPoint, then go back to the trackpad. Why does Dell always have a big flaw that they couldn't get rid of from the testing phase?! This is so ridiculous!

 

I found that when I turn off the touch check completely for the touchpad and cracked up the speed to near the max it was ok. You need to remember that every time you install new drivers it clears your settings so you gotta go back in and redo your settings.

 

Add me to the list of users having the same problem. This is on a new Inspiron 15 purchased for my wife. Presumably with the same ALPS touchpad as most current Dell laptops (?). It appears I'm the 7th unique user in this thread reporting that they have this issue.

While I typically use an external optical mouse on my E6500, she uses the touchpad exclusively - so this is a critical issue for her. If Dell can't resolve it shortly, we will probably return the system while we still can, and look for a non-Dell replacement.

 

Found another 22 unique users reporting apparently the same issue with the Studio 15's using ALPS touchpads: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=309852

(Reporting users: isabido, jleonard711, kk2008, davidstudio15, frazell, PepperdotNet, Mezzi, [email protected], nbulp, NTolerance, GShyneDM, ratsrcute, Krattle, pgraju, ro22, Mastershroom, joey-t, Dell User 99, royce416, ps89, Crazyal, ayushbh)

Also:

• http://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/forums/message.jspa?messageID=120121
• http://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=48239

 

I also am having this issue on my D520. Some times even the tap to click will not work, and i will have to go to the mouse settings and turn the tap to click off and then back on, and it will work 100% for a day to a week or 3. Sometimes also the mouse will not move correctly, and it will only last like 5 secs and then start working fine.... I thought the touch-pad was going out on it... But i was like how? It has No wear on it...

 

Found ALPS Touchpad Driver version 7.5.2021.101 (for an Acer Aspire 3810TZ) at http://drivers.softpedia.com/get/KE...LPS-Touchpad-Driver-752021101-for-Vista.shtml . This is the newest I've seen - please update if otherwise.

Trying now. Will update with results...

 

No improvement with the 7.5.2021.101 drivers. As with the problematic audio drivers, also tried the Inspiron 15 with all Alps drivers uninstalled completely, just using the Windows 7 default drivers. There doesn't appear to be any correlation between the drivers and the hanging / freezing issue.

As hinted at in the other thread and elsewhere, also ruled out any issues with the AC power supply by easily reproducing the hanging / freezing on battery.

It is important to note that this is not a "system hang", or an issue due to a DPC spike. At least as I'm reproducing, the CPU usage remains minimal. An external mouse always functions normally as well.

The only possible "trigger" seems to be related to re-placing a finger on the touchpad, e.g. if moving across the screen, running out of space on the physical pad, and having to lift up and replace the finger on the opposite end of the pad to continue moving the cursor on the screen. However, this is not at all consistently reproducible. Additionally, disabling any options in the driver options that could interfere with this, such as tap-to-click, do not appear to affect the issue.

This system (a Dell Inspiron 1545), is less than 2 days old.

 

Spent almost an hour online with Dell chat. They had me re-install the latest Dell-available version (7.4.115.102) of the ALPS driver, as well as re-flashing the BIOS to the latest A13 (already installed). They also wanted me to try Windows 7 Safe Mode, as well as the Dell Diagnostics for both the touchpad and the motherboard. I'm highly doubtful that either of these will give any meaningful results, but I promised to do so and get back to them. They then followed-up by scheduling a return phone call to me for tomorrow night.

Interesting development: It seems that hitting any key on the keyboard (doesn't matter which) while the touchpad is froze causes it to unfreeze. Not sure if this is software- or hardware-related. However, this casts some doubt on it being an issue with the physical touchpad itself, and maybe something more related to hardware interrupts, etc. This would also explain why other users had the touchpad and sometimes the motherboard replaced without any improvement.

I suppose it could still be driver related, but would have to be common to both the 7.4 and the 7.5 driver versions, as well as the Windows 7 default. I'll also try to reproduce with an Ubuntu Live CD...

 

The latest Latitude E6400 driver for the ALPS touch pad seems to have solved the issues on my E6400 under Windows 7: it is version 7.102.101.228, available for download from the Dell website.