Gateway NV59 - touchpad no workie

Have an old Dell USB mouse plugged in and works fine - did not install any drivers for it - trackpad does absolutely nothing with or without the mouse plugged in. Re-boot without mouse does nothing.

Everything I find says to open up Mouse properties and go to the Device Settings tab - that'd be great if there were a Device Settings tab, but it does not exist.

Have removed the Alps driver, downloaded and installed the newest one from Gateway - still nada - yes with appropriate reboots after uninstall and re-install - still no Device Settings tab either.

I have also already read the owner's manual for this machine and there is nothing in it about any keyboard shortcuts for disabling and re-enabling the touchpad.

Been through the first few pages of google searches also, but I could be blind.

There is nothing out of place in Device Manager except no mention of the trackpad as an input device anywhere.

Any any other ideas?

 

Make sure the touchpad button at the top of the keyboard is enabled. On my NV79, it's just above the F10 key and shows a square with a hand in it. There's a plus sign on the back of the hand. If this image is white, it means your touchpad should be working. If it's red, it means touchpad has been disabled. Just press on it with your finger to change its status.

 

JoeBat's fix will probably work. If it doesn't, you may have defective merchandise. Time to find out just how good your Gateway warranty is. The ribbon cable that connects your touchpad might be just slightly loose, which would cause the hardware to malfunction. If you're under warranty there's no need to go poking around in there when you can have the retailer or Gateway fix it for you. Good luck and nice work tracking down all the appropriate places in Windows for mouse hardware settings.