Vaio VPCZ 1290X -- erratic cursor & touch pad

I purchased the unit in 8/10 -- maxed out to the max.

Sometime around January, the cursor on the touchpad started acting erratically. It was like it had a mind of its own.

It wouldn't move, or it would move up and down but not across, or it would turn into the cross and start expanding or shrinking the window I was looking at (whether browser or excel, e.g.)

I called tech support and they treated it as a user problem, I pressed too heavily or something like that on the touch pad.

Through remote access, the tech person shrank the scrollable area, reduced the sensitivities of the touch pad to my hand movments, etc.

It seem to solve the problem for a month. Then it happened again It would be intermittent. It would get to the point that I couldn't use the laptoop for hours and then it would suddenly work again.

So I called tech support again; again remote access -- and the cursor worked fine for about 3 weeks and then again the same problem.

This past Sunday, I called tech support -- I went through 3 agents.

One couldn't solve it and hung up on me.

The second one guided me through uninstalling and reinstallling the touch pad program (which had been done before) and then to download an update that came out a few weeks ago to address this problem.

It took her over 2 hours to guide me through this as she could barely speak incomprehensible english and she was reading a manual to tell me what to do and the instructions were pretty much wrong as to how to find files.

And this was the premier support line that I was paying the phone charges on.

So the download to correct the problem of the erratic cursor is obviously a known problem by SONY.

So the cursor worked for the few minutes the tech was on the phone to have me test it. But within a few minutes, after we were off the phone, it went out again.

I called a 3rd tech yesterday, who through remote access tried to solve the problem with the same adjusting features on the touch pad through remote access.
Again the cursor worked, he got off the phone and within minutes it went out.

It kept going in and out for the rest of the day. -- as it is now while I am typing this.

The last tech person said if this happens again -- it is a hardware problem.

So I called tech support again yesterday -- after being escalated to several levels, they said they would send someone onsite to repair it.

Otherwise, if I sent it in, it would be over a month before I got it back (2-3 business days to get me a box to send it in -- 3-4 business days to get to their repair facility -- 9-14 days for them to repair it and 3-4 business days to ship it back. Transate every 5 business days to a week -- and it will be over a month before I can use my laptop again.)

Then I got another call from someone who wanted to troubleshoot the problem over the phone.

First he asked what AC adaptor I was using. It was clear he had not a clue -- never heard of this probem and was reading a manual.

He then claimed he had isolated the problem without going through any other steps -- I asked him what it was and his response was: "well it was some problmen with your software or hardwware." I actually hung up on him

Finally I was called by someone who said he was cancelling the onsite visit because the onsie tech person wouldn't be able to evaluate the problem. ????

All they do is bring the part that is broken and if that doesn't solve the problem they leave.

So I have to send the laptop out for repair and not have it for over a month.

They will not provide a loaner nor wil they replace the laptop.

I have never had a laptop company take this long. (or have such incapable, incomprehansible tech people.)

So I have 2 questions:

1. Has anyone else had this problem with the erratic cursor? And if so -- how was it solved?

2. This is my 3rd bout with SONY tech support -- the first one was when they delivered a part that was pack in a way that damaged it. They wanted me to lie and say it was shipper's damage.

3. The second was one was setting up the system -- each tech person I spoke ot said the previous one told me incorrect information.

I lost 8 hours on Sunday and 4 hours yesterday with tech people, whose mics were so bad their voices were muffled; putting that together with the fact that they could barely pronounce english words properly -- this wasted a huge amount of my time.

I love the laptop -- but at this point I am thinking of demanding my money back.

I spent $5000 on this laptop and though I absolutely love it -- it has been less than a year and SONY customer support has been nothing but a headache.

Has anyone else had this experience? What would peopel suggest?

 

5000 for a Z1290?
you are really rich

 

Some tips that have worked for me in the past (on desktops - fortunately no such problems with my vaio so far - touch wood):

What happens if you use an external USB mouse? If that works, then
1. you can still use your laptop to do emergency stuff.
2. you have isolated the problem to the trackpad and drivers.

If it doesn't work - same problem - try disabling/uninstalling the trackpad. If still no joy, suspect a trojan or similar. Do a full system scan, download and install threatfire from pctools.com and/or trojanhunter and scan for rootkits/trojans. Save your data and do a complete system recovery asap.

 

I sent my VPCZ 3 times and they did NOTHING .....also I got back my laptop with some scratch !
the touch pad look like it love the cold temperature or aircon ...otherwise it stop working .

 

I've expertienced this problem from time to time and a couple of things helped the most:

1. Download the latest driver from the Synaptics web site. It just works better than the Sony drivers, and has a few more gestures it supports.

2. My touchpad is susceptible to both cold temperatures and air blowing near it, as from a ceiling fan on high just above. If I hold my warm hand over the touchpad, sometimes even rub it once or twice to create friction heat, it always completely remedies it.

3. I've had mixed success with this, but there is a utility called TouchFreeze that is supposed to diminish the sensitivity of the touchpad when you're typing - far better than the built in Synaptics version. I'm not as certain this does much on the Z1, but it's worth a try if the suggestions above don't work well enough.

 

would you please post the links in order to download the right drivers?
thanks a lot for your kind help ,

 

Go to this page: Drivers | Synaptics and choose the driver for Win7/64 bit. I haven't found a way to download the touchpad drivers alone without getting a new product of Synaptics called Scrybe. You can read about it and try it if you're interested. I just download the whole thing, then go to Control Panel -> Programs and Features and uninstall the Scrybe driver, which is separate and apart from the new Synaptics driver.

One more thing: it's probably a good added precaution to first uninstall the current Synaptics driver and then install. You won't lose use of the touchpad to do the install - there are stock Windows drivers that work.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the driver link, lovelaptops.

 

pleasure

 

thank you Lovelaptops and sorry for my late reply .......
I did the update and and nothing changed about the sensibility ........I opened the palmrest and the board located below the touchpad and I found something very interesting .........I think in the past some coffee or other staff fall on it when I gave my laptop to some friend for some hour ......the att. photo are just 2 but missing one that i didn't make and it was the below part of the touchpad all brown color ......by the way now it is ok .

one more question ......any one know why the cooling system is always on?

thank you again

 

Sorry, don't know why but it is at least normal behavior for these laptops.

 

Not too unexpected. If it happened on an Apple product (not that it does, their touchpads are rock solid), dealing with their tech support would be a different story.

 

so is it normal ? and battery life ?how many hours keep on your battery?

 

Hi i created this account just to let you know that your not alone. The problem is frequent and i have been trying to solve this problem for 9 months now unsuccessfully. I have a sony Vaio VPCEB1Z0E. My touch pad also has a mind of its own at times, It happens about 4 times a week for about 5-10 minutes and it works normally again on its own. At times i dont want to wait until the problem stops because trying to use the touchpad becomes very frustrating so i just hold the power button and power off the laptop, then turn it back on and problem is solved temporarly until it happens again. Its very difficult to navigate for the 5-10 minutes and at times i cant power off the laptop because its a hassel trying to open up all the documents and websites again, so i have decided to buy a usb mouse to use if the problem ever comes up i just plug in the mouse. Basically the touch pad would seize to work sometimes half of the touch pad turns into scroll. at all times i noticed that if i hover my finger over the touch pad without touching it the pointer moves, this i find very strange. Just to clarify to anyone reading this, there is no external mouse plugged in at this point. when the problem comes up and i simply hover my hand or finger on top of the touch pad (without touching it), the pointer responds and starts to move.

I'm still in the process of trying to solve the problem While searching for a solution i ran across a youtube video that explains how to solve such problem see link below. I have followed the directions but the problem is still happening.
Let me know if you ever get this problem solved

VAIO® - Troubleshooting the touchpad on your Laptop - YouTube

 

Hello zeeeeeeek ,


I had the VPCZ12JHX for couple of years with the same touch pad problem and Sony support just made me loosing time .........by the way at the end I found out by my own experience that the touch pad stop working properly every time you move from a closed place with air conditioning to out side with high temperature or humidity , practically the touch pad get a kind of condensation that will disappear after awhile , you can also try to restart the laptop and it will work properly.

I hope it info will be helpful to you

 

Just as an update.

SONY did send out a tech person to replace the touchpad. The one sent with the tech was the wrong one for my computer.

As this was a couple of years ago, and I've been dealing with a very stressful family medical situation, I don't remember ultimately what happened -- except that SONY finally fixed it.

I don't remember if I sent it in, or some tech person figured it out or an onsite tech person came with the right part. I just seem to remember that when it was finally fixed it was fixed quickly. If I sent it in -- they got it back to me quickly.

But it did get fixed. And has basically worked fine except a very occasional erraticness that lasts for a couple of minutes.

I am sorry I have no more useful information about that.

I love the laptop, it is so light, it has blu-ray, ssid drives, great screen, very light, easily portable, the extended battery, which is on the unit all the time last for several hours. I could not ask for a better laptop (though it is starting to get old -- nearly 3 years) but I oculd ask for better tech support -- that's for sure.

 

I had the same issue with my old Z, Sony couldn't fix it after trying once on site, and once via mail in. They finally gave me a refurbished newer Z, which I sold after a few months and used the cash to buy a Vaio Duo.