m15x - using touchpad and ext. mouse at same time..

ok, i just recently reformatted my computer, and I have installed ALL the latest drivers, including the latest synaptics touchpad driver, and here is my problem: Whenever i plug in an external mouse, my touchpad stops working, even when i press fn+F12 to turn the touchpad light back on, it does nothing. before i reformatted, it worked just fine, i could use the touchpad while the ext. mouse was plugged in. I remember finding an option SOMEWHERE that let me do this, but i can't find it anywhere now! does anyone know how to do this??? its so annoying.

 

Have you clicked the Synaptics icon in the taskbar? It should be in the "Device Settings" tab.

 

yeah, of course. its not there!

 

Wait, the icon is not there or the option isn't there?

 

the option is not there. see, !

 

even when i click on "settings" , there is no option

 

Do you still have the CD that came with the drivers? Try installing the driver that came with the laptop instead of the latest driver.

 

well thats what i had at first, and i couldnt figure it out, so i installed the latest one.

 

change it in the Command Center under "Touch".

 

i dont have "Touch" in my command center. all i have is FX and fusion... where is touch? screenshot plz?

 

you might need to update your CC.

 

hmm i just updated it and i dont have sense or touch on my command center..

 

I have alienware command center version 1.0.17, which according to alienware support site (myhive) is the newest version. what version do you have? (you can go to FX editor and cick help>about to see the version you have. If you have a newer version where did you get it because I apparently have the newest one. If you have a newer one could you send me the software that you can download from your MyHive?

 

I have same problem. Latest driver doesn't help, nevermind it is from AW or Synaptics. From the start I never saw this option. It is so annonying, especially I attach joystick from Logitech, my touchpad is immediatelly off. Usually I'm doing this before launching game, and I'm confused being in windows and having joystick and no mouse.
I updated CC to v. 28 so I had "touch" option. There was that checkbox, but worked only after switching from CC, and not permanent. After hibernation, or restart, it was always back "switched off". Imagine always I wanted to use touchpad with ext. mouse paralelly I had to launch CC and switch it on.
New CC started very slowly and sometimes crashed, so I reinstalled back to v. 17, using system restore (because installation of "old" CC after "new", done nothing and I had still "new" which was buggy).

So far I can't find any solution.

M.

 

It's software that controls this hardware. The issue can be fixed with some research on the part of Alienware. Maybe they are contracting out there software engineering instead of having hands on control of an in-house engineering dept.

 

Uncompress the AW driver and you will see a AW reg install file. In there, you will find the reg keys for the option to show up in Synaptic setting.

You can try to type the key in yourself, or press it to install it. Either way, it doesn't seem to work in Windows7. It might work in vista. To work in Win7, you have to install the keys right after install the synaptic driver, and before a restart. After install the keys, you restart the laptop, the option will show up.

Took me LONG time to find this solution.

PS. Even I got the option to show up, the synaptic doesn't do what it suppose to do in Windows 7. Will try to fix it for Windows 7.

 

I uncompressed AW install file and there I can't find any .reg file. I'm not common with registry, could you please explain where to find that or maybe give us proper registry string ? I'm sure this would be helpful for others.

M.

 

Is this a problem only in 32 bit? As far as I'm concerned in 64 bit Vista, the only way I CAN turn off my touchpad is to go into device settings in synaptics menu (fn-f12 doesn't work) Regardless of USB mouse

 

... yeah, what .reg file? where? I don't see any.

I do see this line in the INF file:
HKLM,SOFTWARE\Synaptics\SynTPEnh,DisableIntPDFeature,0x00010001,0x00000003

Which is for the disable option for the internal pointing device... I'm thinking if you poked around in that registry area for a while, you could probably find the right thing to change the options permenantly... should be under: Hkey_local_machine\Software\Synaptics\SynTPEnh\ somewhere.

n'joy.

 

Thanks, great job.
Thats exactly extends for " Disable internal pointing device when external USB pointing device is attached".
I played awhile with regedit, found that stream in three places. All of them had value (3), showing hexadecimal 0x00000003. I'm sure that is what I need, but changing it for value (1) resulted in stream value hex. 0x000 00001, but not 0x000 10001 as you described and doesn't changed anything. 10001 resulted 0x00010001 but this doesn't helped too. So, no way to show this checkbox in the driver panel ? Reinstallation ofc. doesn't help.

cheers

Mark

 

i found a way to use the touchpad while an ext. mouse is plugged in. Uninstall synaptics drivers from the control panel. the only down side is that you dont have customizable options for the touch pad, like turning "tapping" off, which I always do. but other than that one little thing, i think its worth it. =) cya!

ps, kitir, where did you find the download link for the new CC??? i can't find it anywhere!!!??

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=313652

Make sure you have .NET Framework 3.5 installed before you install the newer version of the Command Center.

 

Whoa ! I found solution.
Your way is good if you're not demanding user. Yes, uninstalling Synaptics driver from CP->Programs&Features allow to use ext. mouse paralelly (funny - uninstalling it from CP->Device manager is not working same way). But I'm using touchpad and I missed scroll zones...

Till today I installed new driver without unistallation an older - this is usually provided by new driver automatically... seems not in Synaptics case.
In my case helped uninstalling from P&F, reboot and then installing driver from AW. I'm on Vista and always tried Vista driver, this time I was desperate and tried XP
I had to test that is working all time and XP Synaptics driver is not crashing system. After 20min of work, Synaptics driver crashed, and tp. dissapeared from system. I tested 3 times, same behaviour.
I found driver was unstable. I reinstalled again, that way above, but using Vista VHQL driver. As far this is stable.
Now I have full functional touchpad, I can attach any ext. mouse or joystick and tp. is still working.
Combination of Fn+F12 is not switching off tp. but only light on it - but I never used that, so don't care. Now I think I prefer rather that light switch than whole tp. switch.
Funniest thing is I still don't have checkbox on Synaptics driver panel. But it is working as I wanted. For me problem solved. Seems proper way of installation is very important.

Like Oceanus said above. But I don't have good experience with that new CC. I liked face recognition, but it doesn't worked well on my camera. Faster was type password, so switched it off. Worse, new CC started very slowly and sometimes frozed, so reinstalled back to .17 - this is starting very fast after touching button, and I think it has enough options for me.

cheers

K.

 

kitir, that was kind of confusing... can you give me step by step instructions on how to get the results you got?? and oceanus, the problem is i dont have the file to install hah, im trying to find the download location of CC setup file, thats all!

EDIT: oh sorry oceanus hadnt clicked on the link you provided yet. thanks!

 

Sorry, writing whole story may resulted in confusing indeed

My conclusions in short:

1.Uninstall Synaptics driver from Control Panel->Programs and Features
2.Reboot
[I think you're on that step - you can use touchpad and ext. mouse, but tp. is without any additional features as scrolling zones, tapping control etc. because Vista is using generic driver and nothing more]
3. Download installation file from MyHive : m15x_Touchpad_Vista_10.1.8.0_WHQL.exe and use it.
4. Reboot
That's all. After that I can use tp. with full driver features, and ext. mouse the same time. Tp. is not switching off after ext. attached, however Fn+F12 now can't switch off tp. but only light around it (personally I like that behaviour).

Point that way should work, but I have no chance to check. Somebody should try it and confirm - you can be first.
If not, my exact way : uninstall driver, reboot, install XP driver (from MyHive), reboot, uninstall that driver, reboot, install VHQL Vista driver from MyHive, reboot. On my m15x worked, now I'm happy. Fully stable driver with feature I hardly needed. (yes I know sounds stupid, but it worked)

 

ok cool ill try it out and let you know if it worked. you still dont have the checkbox that says "use ext. mouse and TP at same time" or whatever it says in the synaptics control panel, right?

 

Right, no checkbox.

 

My specs just in case:
Alienware m15x Laptop
15' monitor with 1920x1200 native resolution
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9300 @ 2.50GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX @ 800Mhz Mem/500Mhz Core (186.03 Drivers) -> OC to 950 MeM/550 Core
4GB DDR2 RAM @ 667Mhz
Windows Vista SP1

I had installed:
Bios x36
Command Centre 1.024 (This is version it says it is but I used the 1028 file?!)
OSD 00025
Synaptics 10.1.8.0 WHQL

With
(A) Fn+F12 Touchpad disabling
(B) USB Mouse Touchpad Auto-disable all working

I tried installing the latest version of Synaptics driver from laptopvideo2go.com:
Synaptics 13.0.4.0
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15103

This unfortunately prevented both the Fn+F12 Touchpad toggling from working along with the USB Mouse Touchpad Auto-disabling feature.

After reading through this thread and others around the web I decided to do a clean install of all the related drivers/components I thought were the cause. Although it took some trial and error i.e. lots of installing and uninstalling of various versions of all these drivers, I managed to get both of the USB Auto-disable and then the Fn+F12 working again.

----

(A)
In order to get the:

"Disable internal pointing device when external USB pointing device is attached" checkbox

to appear in the
[Synaptics->Mouse Properties->Device Settings] dialog

You need to edit the following in the Windows Vista registry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Synaptics\SynTPEnh]
"DisableIntPDFeature"=dword:00000003
"ShowDisableIcon"=dword:00000001

I have attached a .ZIP file containing a .REG file that if you execute it should do this for you, provided you have the Synaptics drivers already installed. This worked on version 13.0.4.0 but I believe...in theory... it should also work with the 10.1.8.0 version for those of you who are having trouble.

Note for those of you who tried to get this to work before that it required the dword hexadecimal value is '3'. I found this out by installing the 'Evaluation version' of the Synaptics drivers that came on the m15X Support DVD then looking at the registy. Also that the 'ShowDisableIcon' also needed to be included.

@kitir: Thanks for pointing me the right direction in this regard!

And remember to RESTART YOUR COMPUTER for this (and any other!) registry changes to take effect.

(B)
However this did not solve the problem with losing functionality of the Fn+F12 Touchpad toggling after installing the Synaptics driver 13.0.4.0. The solution for this one is simple. Install the OSD 00025 again and your Fn+F12 functionality should return.

----

For those fo you wishing to do this from scratch I would suggest the following method to update your synaptics drivers and restore functionality of the both the USB Mouse Touchpad Auto-disable initially and then the Fn+F12 Touchpad toggling:


1) Removed Command Centre, OSD and Synaptics -> Restart
2) Install the Synaptics driver 13.0.4.0 from laptopvideo2go.com (or Synaptics 10.1.8.0 WHQL from Alienware?) -> Restart
3) Update the registry as I've suggested above or with the .REG file in the attached .ZIp to this post -> Restart
*(A) Check that your touchpad disables when your mouse is plugged-in.

4) Install Command Centre 1024 (1028?!) and OSD 00025 -> Restart
*(B) Check that you can toggle your Touchpad on/off when your mouse is UNPLUGGED. i.e. You will not be able to toggle your touchpad on and off with the mouse plugged-in as you JUST added that disabling functionality in step 3.

----

This is what worked for me. I pretty confident about the (A) Restoring the "Disable internal pointing device when external USB pointing device is attached" checkbox. I think the (B) Fn+F12 loss was specific to me so...

Hope it helps!
mr

 

Uh why don't you just tell the system to not load the synaptics driver in msconfig thats what i did and i can use both the touch pad and trackball at the same time and still use all the features of the touch pad by turning it off or on with the FN - 12 combo

 

But you lose the functionality of the Synaptics driver which some people want to keep.

Perhaps I should have started a new thread given the title of this one...

 

Well I just did all of the steps that you provided. and it fixed the problem for me except that when I plug in/unplug the usb mouse the light surrounding the trackpad is unresponsive. Otherwise FN+F12 now just turns the light on and not the trackpad. The trackpad will only turn off if I have a usb mouse plugged in.