FZ Trackpad just died

The track pad on my trust FZ-190 appears to have just died. Would any of you (Rajesh) with an FZ model please look in task manager and tell me where the hardware SHOULD be showing up? I am not seeing it at all. That really concerns me as it would indicate a motherboard issue rather than a pad failure. Not good...

Gary

 

The touchpad is "Alps Pointing-device for Vaio", shows up under the mice and other pointing devices in the Device manager.

Are you sure that the touchpad died?

 

Didn't you accidentally hit [Fn]+[F1] ?

edit: Just looked up the keyboard layout and couldn't find the blue 'disable trackpad' print on your F1. That probably wouldn't do the trick then...

 

Thanks Rajesh.

In device manaager, I do not see the ALPS touchpad unless I enable show hidden devices. Then it shows up with a yellow exclamation mark. Drilling into the properties it says the device is not present.

That leads me to think it migh be a motherboard issue. I would think if the pad itself died the device would still show in Device manager.

Not sure what my next move will be here. For now I am using a mouse.

Sigh.....

Gary

 

I opened up my CB series and there is a small ribbon cable that connects the touchpad to the motherboard. It looks quite flimsy. I'm not 100% sure if the FZ is the same because while I have opened my previous FZ up numerous times, I never went so far as to see the space between the touchpad and motherboard. However I doubt it's any different, so if you have experience with disassembling the laptop it may be worth a shot to check if the touchpad ribbon cable has come loose from the motherboard.

 

You should remove speaker grill (cover) and then remove keyboard to check the cable.
I am sure it's not a motherboard issue.

 

^ Oh yeah duuhhhh!!! The inside of the motherboard is visible by removing the keyboard Totally forgot about that as I have no idea how to remove the keyboard on the CB.

 

Here is how to remove speaker cover of FZ.
Bottom up your laptop in the way the battery facing you (DVD drive will be on the right side).
Remove 2 screws at the corners (near hinges)
Remove 2 big screws under battery
Remove screw on the right of battery connector
Remove one more screw under memory cover
Then place your laptop normally, open the lid max. Open the cover at hinge corners first then edge near battery. Remove battery to make it easier.
Once cover is removed, you will remove another 2 screws on top edge of keyboard.
Now, just lift the keyboard.

 

Sorry to be off topic, but do you have any idea how to remove keyboard for the CB series? (Dont mean to hijack thread)

 

Not trying to argue, but would the ALPS no longer show up in the Device manager if it were just a cable issue? I thought the guts of the electronics for the pad were on the motherboard? It's worth checking out either way. I have a spare touchpad and palm rest, as I replaced them both as a unit a year or two ago because the palm rest was showing signs of wear, and I kept the old one arround just for this sort of reason!

Gary

 

It's worth a try since without the cable, you won't have touchpad in the system.

 

Eureka! Success!!

I took at the keyboard and the touchpad connector seemed to be firmly in place. As I said I had the original palmrest/touchpad assembly so I left the keyboard out of the machine and sat the old palmrest assembly on top of the current one. I then disconnected the current touchpad and connected the old one. Of course I was unable to have the keyboard in place when doing this. But I booted up Win7, nonetheless, and when I go to a login prompt I was able to use the old touchpad.

Before I bothered to tear the machine down far enough to swap the palmrest assembly, I decided to give the current touchpad a try. I reconnected it, and again without a keyboard booted the machine. At the login prompt I was indeed able to use the CURRENT touchpad!

So the issue was with the connection. Therefore I can attest to the fact that a loose cable WILL cause the touchpad to NOT show up in the Device manager.

Thanks and rep to those who helped out. Since I can only give one rep point in this thread I'll do a random pick from those who helped. (Rajesh I'll leave you out of that raffle as you already know I have MUCH respect for you, my friend.)

Gary

P.S. Apparently I can give more than one rep point in a single thread. So all three of you got one! Thanks again.