HEL80 touchpad ultimate thread

Hey, I want to get a definitive thread going on the HEL80's crappy Elantech touchpad and what can be done about it. Just this weekend I replaced mine with an actual Synaptics touchpad I pulled from a Gateway MX6450. Much better! I plan to come back and update with some pictures and information soon.

First off the Elantech touchpad has crappy drivers. I think that's it's biggest problem and to date I don't think anybody has created or discovered better drivers.

There's a myth going around that the Synaptics touchpad drivers work great with the Elantech touchpad. The reality is that the Synaptics drivers install but are disabled because they are not compatible with the Elantech touchpad. You can get the same effect from simply uninstalling the KTPware drivers and just using the touchpad as a standard PS/2 mouse.

The problem, as people have noted, is that Windows doesn't have very good control over touchpad acceleration and it has no control over enhanced features like scroll areas and gestures.

My old gateway had an actual Synaptics touchpad that I had grown quite accustomed to. In fact the HEL80's was such a huge disappointment that for weeks I eyed the gateway and wondered if I could transplant it's touchpad to the HEL80. In addition to having better drivers, the Synaptics TP just "feels" better under my finger. And it's exactly the same shape and size as the HEL80's... Hmmm...

Touchpads use the standard PS/2 protocol. They have a custom chip built-in that translates between the capacitive sensor + button inputs and the PS/2 protocol. There are six pins required to connect the touchpad:

+5V
GND
PS/2 Data
PS/2 Clock
Left Button input
Right Button input

This means that once you have the pinouts for the HEL80 and another touchpad, you can solder small wires between the touchpad and the HEL80's ribbon cable to connect them.

Let's stop right here: Unfortunately it's not as simple as just "plugging in" a Synaptics TP. Although they are electrically compatible, the plugs are not physically compatible. In order to wire up the new pad, a great deal of patience, manual dexterity, and soldering skill is required. I used the smallest gauge "magnet wire" I could find from Radio Shack. This worked pretty well but again one needs experience--for example removing the enamel from magnet wire.

Tonight or tomorrow night I will post up pictures, pinouts, and more technical data for those who are interested in continuing or attempting this.

I'm also looking into a source for appropriate Synaptics touchpads. If there's enough interest, I could design a small adapter PCB so no soldering is required and maybe put together a little kit. I think it's a very worthwhile upgrade. The original touchpad is such crap and the Synaptics touchpad is so nice.

Comments?

 

Sounds like a worthy hack. Can you move from one edge of the screen to the other without picking up your finger? How about pixel-small movements?

I like the touchpad and acceleration curve pretty well as is, with the Windows drivers. Horizontal scrolling would be nice though, and the ability to make larger movements would be nice too.

 

I'm not very picky about being able to cross the screen without lifting my finger, but if you set the speed to the max it can be done (just tested it). I'm pretty sure it's about the same as the windows default driver. There's also supposed to be an option to continue gliding along the same vector if your finger reaches the edge of the TP area and you don't lift it, but I haven't tried it out. There are tons and tons of options in the synaptics drivers.

What I care about most is that the scrolling is vastly improved. There is vertical and horizontal scrolling with totally customizable scroll zones. The scrolling is much much more compatible and smooth across different programs than the KTPware driver. There are far too many options to iterate here. Most of them are novelties that I don't care about but the point is that almost everything imaginable is configurable. It's a very good driver.

It has basically the gliding curve of the Windows driver but with all the added touchpad features like scrolling, touch zones, palm-check (in case you rest your palm on the TP while typing), etc.

If you really want to try it out, drop in to Best Buy and ask somebody to punch in the password and turn off that stupid demo program they're always running on their current model Gateway computers. Chances are it'll have a Synaptics TP with an icon in the system tray where you can access the driver options and experiment.

 

I'm currently running the windows drivers, because I want scrolling capability. One thing I really like about the Elantech is the ability to right and middle click just by tapping with 2 or 3 fingers. I really hate not being able to turn the touchpad off when I've a mouse in, or disabling tapping while typing. Seriously. I'm buying another laptop here shortly, and that is one reason I'm considering a Dell over Compal. That and the keyboard.

By chance I have a HPzv5000 with a messed up MB (I think) and I'd be game to try and take the touchpad from that and put it in my HEL80. I'd love to see your descriptions etc. If you came up with a connector adapter, I might even pay for one.

 

First up is the HEL80's pinout. I think it's easy to see from the picture. Something to be aware of is that the pin1 on the touchpad's plug is not the same as the pin1 on the motherboard's plug. They're opposite. So these numbers are referenced from the MB. If you want to connect the Elantech touchpad to something else, then just reverse the pinout. 123456 -> 654321.


Here you can clearly see that the touchpad I used is Synaptics model TM61PUJ9307. The ribbon cable's plug is just too small to solder to, so I soldered to the Test Points instead. There is no TP for GND, but the large plane on the left is a good GND connection. Here's the pinout:
T6: Left button
T7: Right button
T10: PS/2 Clock
T11: PS/2 Data
T22: +5V
GND: GND


You can see in this picture how everything will look when the retainer/hold-down plate is in place. Notice that the wires for the buttons will be under the retainer (that's why I used small gauge magnet wire). Also note that there is only just a little room on the right-edge for the GND connection (not soldered in this picture).


Here is everything wired-up from the touchpad to the ribbon cable.


I used a piece of electrical tape to prevent shorts and folded the magnet wire down neatly.


Finally, here's a low-quality pic of the installed touchpad and the uninstalled Elantech TP.

 

neat article. I must say tho, for me touchpads suck alltogether

I much prefer one of those trackpoints. And on the EL80 i got, the touchpad is pretty good - it does all I need, no bothers. It could only provide a middle click when tapped on the scroll area - that would be awesome.

Nonetheless - good art. Waiting next time for your art on how to improve the EL80 with a trackpoint from for example a T20

Regards,

//m.

 

imachine: If you click the Elantech with two fingers, it's a middle click, three fingers=right click. It's the best thing about this touchpad I think.

 

Having Synaptics installed overtop the Elantech driver actually does work better just the Elantech, or the windows driver;
The acceleration and multi-finger tapping functions of the Elantech driver work, and the vertical scrolling isn't messed up like when you just have Elantech installed.

 

I tried that iza, but what's really happening is that the syntaptic drivers are crapping out, and windows is reverting to the windows drivers. You can't change any of the settings in the syntaptic drivers and get them to stick.

 

I just tried this (the two fingers tap for middle click) on my stock EL80, and it works as a middle click

Great info, tas! :]

 

In regards to a source for the Synaptics touchpads:
Mine came from an MX6450 but I suspected many other gateway models use the same touchpad. I purchased a "Gateway M520 Touchpad & Palmrest" off of eBay and sure enough it's the same touchpad. The ASIC (touchpad chip) is slightly older but the PC board, test points, plug, and pinouts are exactly the same. I would bet that just about any gateway touchpad from the last few years will work, just as long as it's rectangular (not square) and has the vertical scroll bar on the right.