CF52 problems

Hi,
I've been rebuilding a CF52 MK1 and have got most things working OK now, I have installed a 320GB SATA Drive, 2GB RAM (2x1GB, which will be replaced with 2x2GB eventually) and XP Professional (genuine of course). Now here's the problems:

1. I can't get the mousepad to work at all, I've tried the official Panasonic driver and the Synaptics generic driver, the drivers load but the mousepad & buttons don't work. I think I need to take a look at the internals but I haven't found a service manual on line yet.

2.I can't get the GSM/GPRS/HSDPA to work, I had the same problem with two CF18 mk4's but I found the drivers and resolved those OK. I've seen the drivers on panasonic.ca but I don't think the drivers will help me in UK as they appear to be specific to the service providers in Canada.

3. In device manager I have three unknown devices showing, two are shown as 'unknown data Interface' and one is shown as 'unknown device' I guess that the unknown device is the mousepad and maybe one of the data interfaces is the GSM port but I don't know what the other unknown data device could be.

The smart card reader has been removed from this machine so I don't think that is one of the data interfaces. I have a blanking plate on the way to cover the gap left by the smart card reader, I don't know why the smart card readers are removed, I have another CF52 that I haven't done much with yet but it also has a missing smart card reader.

Both the CF52's I have are model CF52CCA32BE which I believe makes them Mk1L (whatever that means), from what I've read on here and other toughbook forums I assume that the '32' refers to the original customer but I haven't found who it was (I don't think it was BT, apparently their Toughbooks booted up with a BT logo and not the Panasonic logo).

The most immediate problem is the mousepad, for now I'm using an external wired mouse.

One other point, when I get to working on the second CF52 it has a missing battery cover, I haven't found one on eBay yet.

I've rebuilt two CF27s and a CF28 before moving on to these (the CF18's didn't need much work, the touch screen on one of them has croaked but I have a replacement on the way) so I have had some experience with toughbooks and finding information on the internet, loading drivers, configuring etc., but I'm stuck with this one at the moment. I like this CF52 and want to replace my trusty (but plastic) Lenovo with it so I can let my wife have the Lenovo.

Any ideas chaps?

Royah

 

Welcome to the Panasonic Toughbook Torum

I don't think it's a driver problem. I have done installs on 52's and never had to load the drivers for the touch pad...not once. What you should do is pick up the restore disk for it, that way it will install the OS and drivers for you. My guess some of the drivers are the Hotkey and/or Panasonic misc driver. You have to install these from device manager.

I do sell the battery covers for the 52 but I am sold out of them at the moment but are on order.

http://stores.ebay.com/Toughasnails-Toughbook-Supplies?_rdc=1

 

Cheers! I'll take another look, I've downloaded the drivers you've mentioned but there is a good chance that I haven't installed them properly.

 

Try running a Synaptics touchpad driver/software package.
Here is the official site.

Drivers | Synaptics

 

Another option would be to boot a "live" Linux CD such as Ubuntu or Mint, and check whether the touchpad works there. If it doesn't, you're most likely looking at a hardware problem.

Good luck.

 

Yeah... The touchpad should work right after you load the OS... You need to load the synaptics drivers to get the scroll function though... If I recall correctly.

 

Hi again,
Thanks for the suggestions. I'd already installed Debian as a dual boot option on this CF52 but the mousepad doesn't work in that either. I've tried a Ubuntu 12.04 Live CD this evening, still the same problem. I'm convinced this is a hardware problem now. The problem is that the other CF52 I have has the same problem so I can't compare between the two machines. I need to figure out how to dismantle a CF52 to access the mousepad, I'd prefer to try to repair the mousepad on my other CF52 first as that one is further away from fully operational than this one is (it needs a new display). I'm using a bluetooth mouse on this CF52 for now.

As for the 'unknown data interfaces', it seems that one of them is an 'ACPI Fan', that has loaded OK. The other data interface now tells me it's a 'Compaq deskpro thermal sensor' I can believe it's a thermal sensor for the fan, but I'm not so sure about Compaq? It loaded anyway.

I'm going to have to put this CF52 to one side for a few days as I have to concentrate on Cisco stuff for a while

Thanks again for the suggestions guys.

 

How was the smartcard reader removed? That is suspicious to me. It's the only common thing, am I right?

These should function in Linux. dmesg | grep input shows the device in my unit. 52MK2. See below. IOW the OS sees the hardware. Not seen equals hardware or cable issue.
Good luck.

 

check the bios settings , touchpad, touchscreen, etc..

 

Hi again,
I'll take a look at dmesg and see what's going on there.
I had to leave the CF52s for a while but a couple of days back I received the parts I needed to complete my 2nd CF-52, this one is running Vista Business (only because I installed whatever the COA was for on these machines).
I had installed a new display on the Vista machine which works well and I then decided to uninstall the free antivirus application I had previously installed and use the Microsoft Security app instead. I discovered by accident that when I had no antivirus app running at all the mouse pad started working! I found it installed on PS2 port 3 in device manager.
I installed the MS app and restarted the machine, I was getting the messages asking if I wanted to run the synaptics .exe file, I allowed it to run and the mouse pad was working again, complete with the little icon showing activity on the pad or buttons pressed. I rebooted the machine several times to confirm everything was ok and shut it down for the night. This morning I've come back to it and the mouse pad has stopped working again. It came up briefly after I disabled the MS security app but now the driver isn't loading again (at least the pad isn't showing in device manager again). Now I've completely disabled the antivirus / firewall applications and uninstalled the synaptics application I had downloaded from their website and I'm going to have another try with the actual panasonic driver.
So, it looks like it isn't a hardware problem after all, I'll carry on with the Vista CF52 now that I know it will work, once I've got this one working reliably I'll go back to the other CF52 which is running XP Professional.
Cheers,
Royah

Edit: It was a hardware problem, I tried Windows 8.1 and the mouse worked for a while, windows 7 loaded the driver but the touch pad wouldn't work. I dismantled one of the CF52's this morning and found that the ribbon cable connecting to CN4100 on the touch pad wasn't locked down, it came away from the main board as soon as I lifted the upper case away. I reconnected it and reassembled the laptop, the touchpad is working fine now, so I dismantled the other one and found exactly the same problem. I'm sure that these laptops had never been dismantled before (the double sided tape under the keyboard hadn't been disturbed). I think both of these machines were from the same batch but with differing COAs (one for XP, one for Vista).
So I've got two fully operational CF52s, nice!
Royah

 

Ok, going to revive this thread. All of my 52G models have a problem with the mouse pad in windows 7 pro. I have got all of them to work but 1, a 52GUN.

Some needed driver reinstalled, most worked once I uninstalled the win 7 synaptics driver and let windows run it.

The 52gun will work in Mint 15, a little sensitive but it works, right now in win7 it works a little but if I change any settings it's done. Remove synaptics and it is dead, right now it really wants to work but is jumping around.

Working about 95%, like it is trying to get sober, hardware? I can replace the pad, got a new one just hate to tear it apart, usb mouse works great. Running narrative here......
.couple of restarts and you can hear 2 of the kathumps that 7 does when you plug a usb and it works......about99%,a little jumpy. What the heck?

 

If you have touchpad issues....you have hardware/cabling problems, forget the driver search.
Get the screwdrivers out. WIHA of course.
UNLESS OF COURSE YOU ARE NOT USING FACTORY RESTORE DVD'S.
It seems that some agencies are removing Smart Card Readers and not being careful. Can't quote the reference because I am eating.

Good luck.

Jeff

 

I think u have the touchscreen version of CF-52. If so u have now 2 concurrent mouse drivers on ur windows 7. U have to install with the correct install instructions the touchscreen driver from Panasonic site. First workaround is to disable the touchscreen in BIOS or deactivate the driver.

 

OK,I'm also not using factory restore discs. I will look at the install instructions and give it a whirl,thanks.