E14 : Trackpad Discussion Only

I've read through countless posts about trackpad issues and read through all of the tutorials on how to fix it, but none of them work for me. I really like this laptop except for the trackpad. I work a lot from the road, so that part of the computer is very important to me.

I'm working from a clean install (Corsair 256SSD from NewEgg).
All drivers up to date according to Windows Update.
Synaptics Clickpad v7.4
Driver version 15.0.17.4

The most annoying part is when I need to drag a folder or file from one place to another. As soon as I put two fingers on the trackpad (one to hold down the left mouse button and one to drag the folder) it freaks out and for the most part freezes on the screen until I remove one of my fingers. I have tried disabling various settings that I felt would hinder this, but nothing seems to work. I have also tried installing the suggested utilities (two finger scroll, etc.), but none of them have an affect on this issue.

Has anyone experienced this or found a way around it?

I'm coming from a unibody Mac Book Pro which has undoubtedly the best trackpad ever placed on a laptop, so I have high expectations.


thanks,
-brit

THREAD SUMMARY by JoeWasEre October 2010 update.

 

with the latest drivers the buttons at the bottom actually have a deadzone.


it's not properly aligned, but there is a deadzone

like from the bottom to about halfway up to the line is the deadzone. So you can left click with one hand and still drag around with your right hand.

 

It's somewhat ironic that I try to buy the best laptop I can find and it comes with trackpad drivers that have major problems. You would think that trackpad companies would have this worked out by now.

I tried the two hand drag and it does work better, but still has problems. I think it is dependent on how close your fingers are to each other when you start the drag. It seems that the further apart my fingers (one holding down button, other positioned to drag item) are the better it works. Two fingers is just way too confusing for this trackpad.

 

you'd think they'd have it worked out, but nope.

*shrugs*

 

i thought there was an app that someone found and it made the touchpad incredable?

 

I would love to find such an app. Please let me know if you run across it again.

 

What version/date is the latest drivers? Did you get it via HP or Windows update?

 

Theres some 2 finger scroll Google Code I think people are using.

 

it was talked about in the first thread.

 

Synaptics Clickpad v7.4
Driver version 15.0.17.4

those guys, 5/27/2010 or something.


the thing from googlecode is two-finger-scroll - Project Hosting on Google Code

 

I returned my Envy 15 due to the trackpad being almost unusable. The Envy 14 trackpad seems to work a lot better to me, however it still skips fairly often in my usage which I find really annoying (I use my thumb to click the mouse button and turn tap-to-click off).

Even after reading through all the suggestions in the main thread, I haven't yet found a way to prevent it skipping. Basically all we want is a dead zone where the button area is ... at least that would do it for me.

I also installed the two-finger-scroll app from google code ( two-finger-scroll - Project Hosting on Google Code) - has anyone noticed how _amazingly_ well two finger scrolling works with this little app? (make sure you disable the synaptics two finger scroll). IMO, it makes two finger scrolling work just as well as my mac and way better than the standard synaptics scroll.

The downside is it seems to make the mouse skip even more when enabled so unfortunately I have to leave it disabled for now. But it makes me think with the right drivers/software, this trackpad could very well work just as good as the macbook trackpad.

 

In JJB's touchpad set-up post, he said:

"Tap zones is another useful feature, you can set the corners to be dedicated button areas with assigned functions, I have the upper corners as page forward and back for my browser and the lower right is the refresh button."

I'm not seeing anything even similar to this option in my touchpad settings. I'm using Synaptics Clickpad v7.4 driver version 15.0.17.4; is that not the most up-to-date version or am I doing something else wrong?

 

I gave up on finding those settings as well. I'm on the same versions as you are.

 

I have noticed that if I disable scrolling all together in the Touchpad settings and then use the Two Finger Scroll application it seems to pick up the scrolling action better. It's by no means good enough for me to be content with it, but it does seem a little better (more reactive).

 

Enable "tap and drag" and then you can drag things with one finger. As JJB suggested you really need to spend time reading through every option in the synaptics settings and go through the little tutorial thing.

 

I windows update'd the trackpad driver, and to me it works a whole lot better.

 

do you mind me asking what driver version did u get via windows update?

 

how do i go about deleting/disabling this two finger scrolling thing i downloaded? It is very very bad and made my trackpad uncontrollable.

 

Driver version 15.0.17.4

 

it's because he's talking about the envy 15 drivers. those drivers for that computer have such an option but not the en14

 

The Windows Update driver did nothing for me.

 

it should be in your system tray (you can stop it from loading on boot)


it's also not really installed. it just sits in the folder you put it.

 

Oh ok thanks! I happened to find it right when i was reading this lol.

 

Damn, I wish that had been mentioned in the post or something...that feature sounds amazing. Wish we could have it on the E14

 

Hey guys,

So I took a look at the TwoFingerScroll source code and ended up making a few minor changes to it to work better with the Envy 14 trackpad. You can download and try it out here:
http://envy14-trackpad-app.googlecode.com/files/TwoFingerScroll-envy14-v0.01.zip

Some notes:
- you must disable the standard synaptic two finger scroll from the mouse settings, you should find the two finger scroll in this app is WAY more responsive and smooth than the standard one *Update* be sure to enable "smooth scroll" in the twofingerscroll app settings
-for those people who click the left mouse button with their thumb while using their pointer to track, you should find the mouse doesn't jump anymore (or far less)
-otherwise I just modified the app so drag and drop work correctly and there is no mouse skipping

If people find this useful I'll spend some more time polishing it up. Disclaimer: I have basically zero c++ experience so don't expect this to be bug free.

Adam

 

I made some changes to the settings that have seemed to emulate what I am used to as a trackpad. The biggest challenge with this one is the buttons are also part of the touchpad. Any multi-finger gestures cause issues as you slide your fingers to the click zones for the buttons. If they were smart, they would have enabled a feature to disable touchpad area on the buttons. That would have fixed everything.

Here are the items I have:

Disable two finger scrolling
Disable pinch zoom
Palm check up a notch or two from default
Touch sensitivity down a notch toward light touch

I also enabled the single finger vertical scroll area on the right side - always found that handy and the pad is big enough. I narrowed the field quite a bit so the right 2 or 3 mm detects this.

 

Tap to drag is an essential thing to have enabled...dragging otherwise is awful. It is a bit hard to get it to work every time you want to do it, but I found that the faster the 2 taps are the better.

I've been using 2fingerscroll and it's great. I made 1+1 finger tap right click, two finger tap back, three finger tap forward, and two + one finger tap middle mouse to bring up the scroll thing, which can actually be quite useful as an alternative to twofinger scrolling sometimes.

I have also found that no matter what I disable, as long as scrolling is enabled within the twofingerscroll program, it makes it impossible to either drag or highlight or such by pressing the left button and dragging another finger...the cursor just remains in place. So I've turned scroll type to off in twofingerscroll. Now everything works great for me. I'm also using tap to click though, I used to not like it but I've come around to it and it's much easier. I guess the problem are from the people who still like using the actual buttons? I've made mine so I never have to click the buttons ever.

 

I mentioned "tap to drag" some time ago in this thread but people don't want to take the time to go through the synaptics settings to customize the touchpad to their liking. I didn't like it at first, but after customizing the settings it is quite nice.

 

Try my custom built version of twofingerscroll that I posted in this thread. It should fix this.

 

I updated the touchpad driver to 15.0.17.4 and every time I would go into the synaptics mouse properties it would say something like "driver version is not compatible with synaptics control panel extension". Despite the message it didn't seem to cause any visible limitations in the control panel. Now magically after a day or so I am not getting the "driver version not compatible with synaptics control panel extension" anymore. Anyone else have this and know what's up?

 

Nicely done, it works well

 

Any way to have middle click on the envy trackpad?

Would make life so much easier =[

 

if you download two finger scroll, you can set some diff configs to equal middle click
I personally use three finger tap, it works well

 

It works pretty well however if i do 2 o 3 finger touch, it also activates just the left click. So if I were to use middle click to open webpage in new tab, it'll open but the current tab would also go to the new page. Any way to stop that?

 

the two/three finger touch is more of a tap tap or tap tap tap in quick succession (like tapping your fingers) not a tap with three fingers at once

 

No, I'm pretty sure its 2/3 fingers at once because the quick succession don't do anything =\

 

it triggers for me.

but I do it really quick. and right to left.

 

OH I see what you mean. haha yes that works. I thought you meant tap the same finger twice.

Okay thanks alot

 

Is anyone else having a problem with two finger scrolling not working occasionally after putting the laptop to sleep? It doesn't happen every time for me but I have to restart when it does.

 

So i'm about to download the two finger scroll program, but I cant uncheck the 2 finger scroll in synaptics. How do i disable it. It wont let me uncheck it!

 

*shrugs* you should be able to.

update the drivers?

 

Isn't 15.0.17.4 the most recent? When I go into device settings, two finger scroll, the check marks are enabled and grey'd out to where I cant uncheck. grr!

 

whelp i fixed it disable gestures got checked somehow! So is the consensus that the twofingerscroll app is better than synaptics?

 

Any way to have have two finger scroll to run on startup and not have the open program window pop up on every boot?

 

go to settings.

there's a run on start thing somewhere

 

Yea I have that enabled but when I turn on the computer it asks me if I want to open 2 finger scroll because it might be a security risk. I have UAC off.

 

...weird.

doesn't ask me that.

isn't there a way to just set that as "always allow" on that thing.

 

are you using the two finger program for 2 finger back and 3 finger foward? Where do you see those options. I see button 4 and button 5 options but how would I set button 4 to back and button 5 to forward. Thanks!

 

Yea I thought there was but there isn't. Sigh. I'll find a way. Maybe I'll do a clean install. Hopefully improving my boot time too.

 

The best way Ive gotten it set up is to turn off two finger scroll, set up one finger scroll on the right side and deal with no 2 finger scroll for now. It actually works nice for me because i use my middle finger to scroll on the right side