Lost scrolling ability on dv4000

For some mysterious reason, the other night when I fired up my laptop the scroll feature didn't work. I tried all the usual fixes - updating the touchpad drivers (repeatedly), checking the advanced featured of the mouse in the control pad (such as check for scroll wheel, assume scroll is present, etc.), etc. - all without any luck.

So I'm here, asking for suggestions. HP Tech support was of no help...."download and install this driver and you should be fine" isn't getting it done. I have a dv4000 and have two drivers that I've tried - the one that's available on the HP website and a second that was offered to me via chat support (appears to be a newer version, but still doesn't work).

Any and All suggestion are welcomed and appreciated.

Regards,

Josey

 

Go to Start - Run and type msconfig. There should be a Synaptics application in the start-up sheet, which must be checked (that is running) for the scroll to work.
Alternatively, uninstall all touchpad drivers, restart and let Windows handle it. Generally, Windows does a good job with it but the touchpad becomes too sensitive. Once Windows detects it, reinstall the latest Synaptics drivers.

 

Checked in there and everything that I wanted/needed checked was already selected.

Tried this, repeatedly, and it's not working. BTW, did you mention Synaptics on purpose or was it by mistake, because my dv4000 uses the ALPS touchpad? I uninstall the driver that's in place (showing up as a Microsoft driver), then the pc automatically restarts. Upon doing so it locates new hardware and installs a driver, however it is again the Microsoft driver. When I try to install the latest ALPS driver it simply doesn't take. I open the control panel->mouse properties screen to check and see if anything looks different but it's always the same old 4 tabs (Buttons, Pointer, Pointer Options, Hardware)....and I know that's not the screen that would appear with the ALPS driver installed.

Still looking for help....not having the ability to scroll is freakin' frustrating!!!

Josey

 

I didn't realize you have a different touchpad. I didn't know HP uses ALPS devices..
So what is the version of your driver? Can't you update the Microsoft driver through Device manager. So you will not uninstall the existing driver but upgrade it manually, that is do not use setup.exe for example.

 

My DV4000 touchpad did not scroll when it arrived. I tried updating the driver by running the downloaded file but it still does not show any touchpad function (but as a mouse). Finally I manually updated the driver in device manager by pointing it to the extracted driver directory to make it works. Mine is EC681AV with x700 video that uses Alps touchpad.

 

this is exactly what I meant

 

I just want to confirm your suggestion with my past experience.

 

Well, this has become quite embarassing guys. I've tried everything you've suggested, numerous times, but nothing is fixing this problem. I have two different drivers that were given to me by HP tech support to try: SP30144 and SP31075. I tried installing each individually, at different times, and tried to update the driver using device manager but each time I get an error message stating the following:

"Cannot Install This Hardware - There was a problem installing this hardware: Alps Pointing Device (2-way). - An error occurred during the installation of the device. The system cannot find the specified file."

During install both of the drivers installed to C:\SWSetup\SP30144 and C:\SWSetup\31075. When I point to these files during the driver update process I end up getting the error message cited above. Is there a specific file inside these folders I should be using, rather than the entire folder?

Thanks for the help on this one guys!

 

Try this way. Go to the device manager and delete any mouse driver first. I am using the 31075 files. You may have corrupted file in the 31075 directory. When I update the driver manually, I just neeed to browse to the \SWSETUP\31075\ folder and it will find the driver for Alps Pointing-device (2-way) version 5.4.1501.9 from 5/12/2005.

 

Meh, that's exactly what I was trying before with no luck. To be sure I retraced my steps and followed your instructions, but alas I'm still without scrolling ability. I'm completely baffled and am hopeful that some others have a suggestion or two to offer. Along with the scroll strip function being gone, before I used to be able to tap both the left & right touchpad buttons to bring up the auto-scroll feature...well, that's gone too.

Please help...

 

What do you see in Control Panel/Mouse? I remember when I had problem, it only showed options for mouse and nothing for touchpad.

 

I've seen each scenario - mouse only options and mouse w/touchpad options. I've tried so many different ways to get this to work but nothing solves the problem.

I uninstall the ALPS driver using Add/Remove Programs, then I'm forced to restart. Upon restarting Windows alerts me to the fact that it has Found New Hardware. It installs the default Microsoft PS/2 drivers for the mouse, and this data is confirmed in device manager when I check to see which drivers are being used (Microsoft, date 7/1/01, version 5.1.2600.0). So, I then try to install the ALPS driver (I have two - one was given to me by HP chat tech support - SP31075 - and the other being the one that you can download directly from the HP website - SP30144), of course only doing one at a time, however during the install for each of these I get another error message saying, "Failed to Init Inf : 00000000." In hopes that this may not be a critical error I proceed to try and update the driver using the device manager > update driver route, where I point to the location of the recently installed ALPS driver (each time that is in C:\SWSetup\SP#####). All appears to be going fine, as I can see files being installed and the progress bar flows along nicely right to the end, but just as it gets there I get another error message, this time saying, "Cannot Install this hardware. There was a problem....An error occurred during the installation....the system cannot find the specified file."

So, as you can imagine I'm losing my mind over this! I've read some other ideas on various forums, for example one suggestion on the Averatec forum in response to a user having the same problem with their ALPS touchpad was to shutdown > remove the battery > hold down the power button for 1 minute > reinsert battery > power on....that was supposed to solve this problem. Perhaps it worked for that person, but not for me.

Is this a BIOS problem? PLEASE HELP!!!!

 

It seems there is something preventing you from installing the driver. Do you have any antispyware or antivirus that blocks registry changes? The other thing may be the MSI problem. I assume you have all the Windows updates patched.

 

I turned off Tenebril's Spy Catcher program hoping that may have been the problem, but I get to the same point every time before getting the error messsage. And yes, I have all the most recent MS updates/patches installed.

Any other ideas?

 

*bump*

Can anybody help me with this? All I want to do is figure out what's preventing me from installing the ALPS touchpad driver. For whatever reason, despite what I try (see previous posts in this thread), nothing seems to work. It keeps going back to the default Microsoft drivers, each and every time!

Please help.....I can't stand not having the ability to scroll using the touchpad.

TIA

Josey