Odd touchpad problem - anyone else see this?

New M17x, about 2 weeks old. One problem I'm seeing: every once in a while the touch pad will become fairly unresponsive. The mouse cursor moves just a little, as if it isn't picking up my finger touch very well. If I wipe the touchpad with a cloth or even my fingers, the problem seems to go away. So you'd think maybe I was getting something on the touchpad, maybe oil or dirt from my finger, but it doesn't appear to be that (completely clean fingers, and the entire touchpad is unresponsive, even parts my finger rarely touches.)

Anyone else see this?

 

have a look in the mouse settings, under the synaptics driver/tab there will be a setting for the touch sensitivity, you can change it to be a light touch vs a heavy touch. I prefer the it set to light vs heavy.

 

Thanks, I did have those set to light, but seem to still get the problem. It is sporadic - everything will be fine, then it will suddenly stop responding. i can wipe the pad with something and it will come back.

 

Have you tried updating your drivers? Just a thought.

 

Try the latest input (touchpad) drivers available at DELL.com.

 

This...there are actually some new ones that were released this month hopefully those might fix you up. I am downloading them now to see if it fixes my touchpad not coming back up when I unplug my wireless mouse.

 

OK, I've installed the newest touchpad drivers, and I still have this problem. I kept thinking it was something like static building on the touchpad, as it would just suddenly act as if it could only intermittently detect my finger (and wiping the pad hard sometimes fixed it.)

Well - I now have discovered it that what "fixes" it is giving the touchpad a nice firm pop (as in lightly hitting it) with my fingers. As if something is loose or something. Anyone else ever see this? I assume this is something I need to call Dell about, though I dread that - "Reinstall the drivers" - "Did that already" - "Do it again" - "OK, no help" - "Reinstall Windows 7" - etc etc. (Is there a number for Alienware support that is better than the standard Dell support?)

 

Send me a PM with your tag and address and I'll send out a technician myself.

 

Thanks very much - I'm about to go on a business trip, I'll PM the info when i get back late this week. Thanks!

 

I hope you havent got 'touch check / palm check' (i cant remember the name of it) on maximum? it basically will ignore any input when you start from off centre if that makes sense it doesnt accept any movement from the edges as it guesses its your palm doing it. But could be hardware issue as well.

 

This error has been corrected in BIOS release A8
you must have an old BIOS version?
Final BIOS is A10, i suggest upgrading as this wil fix many issues with the R2.
If this is not the issue then perhaps someone else here knows the answer.

A08 BIOS release notes