needing help for compal pbl21 trackpad

one day I was happily browsing the web when the track pad just stopped dead.

I triple boot my system, nothing fancy. windows 7 cause.. it's the good one, windows 10 cause I'm trying to like it, and ubuntu cause windows 10 is so bad

now, with that in mind, the trackpad does not work in any of these OS's. I've loaded up a couple of live linux boots and tested them, exactly the same thing. at this point I'm assuming rather than a bad driver that it's dead.

now the only place in europe that does replacments is in poland,which is just under £50 for shipping alone.

what I'm wondering is, knowing they rebrand for lots of other systems, is there one I could grab from say a dell that would work

or if there are any better suggestions. I have a mouse for it, but where I use it mainly I end up having to use the mouse on my thigh which is far from comferable

 

I have this same problem.

 

Sure, not even Compal makes them, there's only a few companies that do and the system builders choose from them. Remove it so you can spot the sticker on the back, which should have the part nr., but also try re-inserting the cable while you're there; it may simply be the ribbon cable that's loose.

On the off-chance; it's probably on the usb bus and it may be sleeping. Since linux is a problem too, make sure to check the bios settings for anything that could be related to suspending components.