New Alps Touchpad Driver from Dell

As I posted in the Inspiron & studio forum, I just installed it again (first time didn't work!) and it works now on my M1530.. and I must say its pretty awesome.. touchpad feels better than before, the scrolling functions are working fine and also the left vertical zoom in and zoom out settings.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4018279&postcount=1

^ Link to the driver in the above post.

Edit:12/10/2008 Considering many XPS users are using this new driver, here is the link (same as the one in my initial post above, but posting the link here again so that people can get it right away) this is not to mean a repeat post from me..

New TouchPad Driver > http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?s=gen&c=us&l=en&cs=&k=R196853&cat=sup&x=5&y=10

 

so ironic I just checked for new drivers on thursday, and 2new one come out friday haha. I will give it a try too. To this point the scroll feature had drove me nuts, maybe because of my big fingers but it seens my finger has to be halfway on the case to work....

 

Would this work on the XPS M1330 as well?

 

Boy........you sure are striking gold today eh?

 

1330 has a good synaptics touchpad. only 1530 has the bad alps device

 

Nice find!! thank you very much

 

I have x64 ultimate on xps m1530 and could not full operation for touch pad.
With this driver, all functions are there and working great.
thanks for the heads up.

 

It actially totally fixed the issue with the scroll! I honestly cannot believe it! I am so happy!

 

Nope, Alps is not a 'bad' device.. just that it didn't work for some people.. and there are lots for whom its been perfect with no issues at all!!!!

Yes, I was surprised too.. In fact the Dell TouchPad Control panel now has a new layout and UI.. and its pretty nice and good.. the left/right button swap feature is also in.. So I think its a pretty good release.. Wonder why they did not release this for all models!! *May be a post in Dell Ideastorm would help?!?!!!*

Yep.. Good for you

 

I wonder why it isn't for all models as well, as it seems to work on all of them that have an Alps touchpad, with all features too, as it supports the pointing stick and extra buttons on my Latitude.

Greg

 

Me too has been asking this all around.. and just posted the same in the direct2dell blog too...

Its a bit strange though.. and I know its not something new.. previously there was one bluetooth or some device driver for a model that had the same device as the m1530 but it didn't show up on the m1530 driver' page..

and yeah, this touchpad driver has been really good and nice.

 

How is the accuracy on the new driver? I'm still using the one on the m1530's driver page and hate how every so often the cursor jumps around or just won't respond.

 

well, to be honest, I didn't have those issues with the previous one from Dell..

But having said that, the new driver looks good too.. touchpad 'feels' a lot better, more options for scrolling, zooming in and out... and over all its a pretty neat driver I guess.

Also there was another user who tried it on the latitude, and said it felt more well behaved now... try it. You could always roll back anytime but this one is good.

 

With my m700 touchpad you could also page back by sliding your finger from right to left along the top. I wish it had that. There was also drifting with the scroll bar which was nice although sometimes it would drift when you didn't want it to.

 

Well the new driver did wonders for me - no more skipping and the scrolling is much better. Very nice.

I'll be keeping the driver as the touchpad was really the only annoyance I had with the laptop.

 

This is actually quite nice, but I miss having my tap zones in the top corners.

 

to get tap zones and back/forward look here
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=308940

 

touchpad works great now, but it totally screwed up my USB mouse settings (Logitech Setpoint now isn't working correctly)

 

ah really??? I didn't have any problems with setpoint... have tried changing b/w OS implementation and setpoint implementation?

 

I did not experience this issue, I use setpoint with my vx nano...(all the functions of this mouse are amazing!)

 

I'll give it a try on my 1420. My alps touchpad always seems a bit iffy.

Edit: WOW, I'm very impressed. I love the zoom and circular scroll, and my touchpad feels so much more responsive!

 

Yep, it is

 

Hmm... I'm using the same mouse, after this touchpad update its about 100x more sensitive though... I turned down the sensitivity all the way and feel about back to normal (still something seems a little off)

Circular scrolling is definitely cool

EDIT: reinstalled SetPoint, things are back to normal

 

I installed it on my inspiron 1525, but now i have problem with the middle click (set to both buttons) and the touchpad size has reduced (is smaller than the real touchpad area).

On the good side, i love the new circular motion scrolling and the zoom scroll too.

I hope dell releases this new alps driver for 1525.

 

It seems it also broke the animations of the cursors-pointers in vista.

 

YES finally somebody else who has my problem. I recently got a Latitude E6400 and its uses these new drivers. I have been complaining about this from day one and everybody says I'm crazy lol. I have talked about it with dell pro support and they say they know about the problem but they don't know if it will every be fixed.

 

Logan, i thought i was the only one, it seems that to be able for the new drivers to show the new cursor for circular motion scrolling and zoom scrolling the mess with the animated cursors on my vista sp1 inspiron 1525. i downgrade to the last driver for now, until someone fix it

 

Wait, let me get this straight, i can install this on my M1530 regardless of touchpad hardware?
I'm a bit confused right now :/

 

You can install this on your M1530 and I think the m1530' anyway come with the alps touchpad. (and I just replied to you, btw)

 

Something starts the issue, my system will run for awhile with the animated cursors then suddenly they stop working

 

Wow these are the first drivers that work on the M170 with vista. Now I can scroll!!

 

So, I'm getting the error that gives me 100% CPu on powerup. Any fixes?

Nevermind, wrong thread, sorry.

 

i lose a column of left on the touchpad on mine, so have rolled back to the old driver. Shame, as it did seem a little less laggy.

 

Great find. My 1420 touchpad is much better now. However, like other said, the animation of the cursor is broken. Is there any fix for that?

 

The drivers work great for my M1530 touchpad, but the scroll wheel and side buttons on my Dell Bluetooth mouse are disabled! Can anyone help?

 

Do you have other software controlling the BT mouse? For me, I have the logitech v220 with setpoint, and this new driver did not mess with it in any way.

 

Using Vista's own drivers. I've removed the mouse, restarted and rediscovered and the functions are restored. However, the touchpad functionality of the Dell drivers is now disabled.

 

Looks like the external mouse and touchpad are conflicting with each other.

In the dell touchpad control panel, have you enabled the touchpad be disabled when there is an external mouse? if not, try enabling it. If you already have the check box ticked (meaning enabled), try disabling it. see if it helps.

 

Do these drivers work with the Inspiron 1525 laptops?

 

I guess it should, and since the Inspiron 1525 showed up as having an Alps touchpad, I don't see any specific reason why it should not.

In fact, this driver was released for the Studio 1536 model and then I tried it on the XPS M1530 and it worked... so I guess it should work in the Inspiron too.

Try it. You can always go back / rollback to the previous driver if you are not happy or if some functionality is lost / missing..