Ways to improve x230 touchpad?

I'm pretty happy with my new x230, but the touchpad is pretty frustrating so I'm hoping for some ideas on how to improve it. Sounds like the issue is not the hardware but drivers, I updated the Thinkpad UltraNav Pointing Device driver to 16.2.5.0 which slightly improved things. However I still get vague precision and overall sloppy control. I thought I read somewhere people removed the UltraNav driver and better performance?

I'm not willing to give up on the pad and only use the pointer, I need to get this thing working!

 

Install the new driver. Also go to control panel > hardware & sound > device & printers > mouse > ultra nav > touchpad settings. Once you go there you can tweak a few things. I disabled all tapping, which helped the most. I also disabled one finger scrolling.

 

I installed 16.2.5.0, is there a newer driver? I've disabled all the multi touch nonsense which definitely helped. It still acts goofy sometimes, enough to really be annoying. Currently it's enough of a show stopper that I'll send it back if I can't improve it. How can so many laptops be coming with buggy touchpads, this isn't new stuff.

 

yeah that's the latest one. try reinstalling then rebooting, see if that helps. i was really disappointed with it as well when i first got it but after playing around with the settings in ultranav i honestly like it better than the trackpad on my old acer timelinex. only problem i have with it is its size but i can live with that.

EDIT: also disable all the 'smartcheck' settings. those created problems for me as well.

 

16.2.10.7 is the latest

 

Thanks for the correction. I didn't realize they released a new one.

edit: where did you find that driver? i only see 16.2.5.0 http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS019164

 

Driver update - Use DriverMax to update all your Windows PC drivers

download it and install it. you can download up to 2 drivers a day for free. but i ended up paying for a 2 year license.

 

Alternatively for Thinkpads, you can just use the ThinkVantage System Update, which automatically selects the appropriate drivers for your model. It's worked perfectly fine in my experience on the T500, X120e, X220, X230, and T410.

 

It doesn't show the latest drivers as Lenovo isn't on top of their game. So you have to use DriverMax which indexes the newest and latest drivers.

 

I downloaded it but it doesn't show that a new version for the trackpad driver.. It says the following are outdated:

intel graphics 4000
synaptics smbus driver
intel gigabit network connection
intel display audio
thinkpad bluetooth
fingerprint coprocessor
intel 7 series chipset family sata ahci controller
ricoh pcie host controller
intel usb 3.0 host controller

I think it's because you have the tablet edition? not sure..

 

idk why but it falls under synaptics smbus driver

 

Oh ok gotcha. Did you notice any significant difference? I'm contemplating on downloading. I had no idea so many of my drivers were out of date.

 

Station-Drivers: le site de drivers, bios, firmwares avec un forum d'aide

Totally in French (except device names), but it should be quite obvious what to click.

 

With drivers, unless it's broken or the new version promises significant improvements, it's probably best not to mess with them. You'll only be introducing more headaches for yourself. Some of Lenovo's drivers aren't entirely stock either, so they'll differ from ones found using tools like DriverMax: often, that won't cause any problems, but occasionally they will (some graphics drivers in particular).

 

yeah i'm probably just going to leave them. these are the drivers it said were out of date:


intel graphics 4000
synaptics smbus driver
intel gigabit network connection
intel display audio
thinkpad bluetooth
fingerprint coprocessor
intel 7 series chipset family sata ahci controller
ricoh pcie host controller
intel usb 3.0 host controller

 

Guys I uninstalled the UltraNav drivers, they are absolutely horrendous. I can't believe Lenovo would let something like this through their testing process. I tap and use two finger scrolling exclusively to navigate, they were registering maybe about 50% of the time. Two finger scrolling was also way too sensitive and would often overschoot even on the most sensitive setting.
I ended up installing the stock synaptics drivers found at here. I'm seeing an improvement with these drivers. I'm sure ultranav has some nice additional features but it fails to perform the simplest tasks.

 

Chris, thanks for the Synaptic drivers. I installed them and had little change, the touchpad is just too frustrating for me. The textured surface doesn't help. THe laptop is going back to Lenovo, I'm going to see what kinds of devices hit the market with Windows 8.

 

You improve it by disabling it and using the trackpoint instead.

I'm switching from my X220 to my T420s due to this stupid touchpad.

 

The TrackPoint is great and it is worth it to me to not use the TouchPad to still be able to use this laptop. With that said, it sucks because I can't recommend this laptop to most people due to the TouchPad problems.

Learn to use to the TrackPoint or send it back. Lenovo isn't going to fix the TouchPad.

It's really hard to find a laptop with a decent TouchPad at the moment though. The Series 9 sucks, the UX31 sucks, but at least Lenovo's have a TrackPoint. The X1 Carbon is suposed to be good though.

I don't count the Folio because it doesn't have a decent screen.

 

Yep, I've tried, I just find the trackpoint to be a bit too slow. They were great back in the day of trackballs, but even a simple trackpad is the way for me.

 

The sensitivity and speed are both adjustable. I'd be shocked if anybody found a TrackPoint configured at the high end of both was anything but blindingly fast. If so, I would kindly request that they share some of the performance enhancing substances required to perceive it as "too slow".