Help needed to mod a generic Synaptics driver to work with the Dell XPS 13 9343? Will gladly pay.

I am at wit's end with my Dell XPS 13 9343. It has a Synaptics touchpad, but it is using the Microsoft precision touchpad driver in Windows 8 or Windows 10. The driver/laptop combo has an issue where there is input lag when trying to use 2 finger scrolling on web pages when browsing with any browser other than IE11. The problem happens in Chrome, Firefox, and other applications like Notepad++, etc. I spoke with the Dell Advanced Resolutions team to see if Dell could release an alternate Synaptics driver for those who are dissatisfied with the driver the laptop ships with. Dell said that they are not responsible for the drivers that ship with their laptops and basically told me to get bent.

I have tried installing the generic Synaptics driver from the Synaptics website, as well as some Synaptics drivers from a third party Dell site. In all cases, I am unable to get the trackpad drivers to install or they are not starting the trackpad.

I am wondering if there is anybody that may be able to assist with modding a Synaptics driver so that I can install it on the XPS 13 9343 (2015). I will happily compensate you for your time and I am sure there are plenty of other people on the Dell forums that would as well.

Here is a thread on the Dell community forums about the issue: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19616659?pi239031352=1#20760434

Youtube video I made showing the trackpad problems. Scroll problems show around 20 seconds in:

 

Here is an old driver I found that worked great for me, it might be worth a try although you seem to have a specific type of problem.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...es-owners-thread.272669/page-403#post-9728931

 

I tried installing that driver. It installs, but nothing shows up in the Device Settings tab. Why does Dell hate me?

 

Have you tried uninstalling the drivers and just used generic MS driver not the precision one... You will lose advanced features but you may maintain stability

 

I have tried that, yes. The mouse cant move fast enough and neither does the scrolling

 

Ok here's the question if that laptop only had Windows 7 drivers for it then if you want help for it you have to put back the Original O/S before anyone can resolve your problem. And if you want a Windows 8 laptop with proper driver support you need to buy a Windows 8 machine. Trying to load a Unsupported O/S even if it is Windows guarantees nothing that it will work correctly sometimes downgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 7 works but not the other way around.

 

I mean this with all respect, but I am not sure what you are getting at here. Would you be so kind as to re-phrase this?

 

Your laptop is obviously made for Windows 8.1 so it doesn't apply here.

 

.

 

What are you guys talking about? That's a current model laptop with win 8.1. OP mentions nothing about win7. His link shows people complaining about the trackpad right out of the box.

 

Yeah, still not sure what he was on about there...

 

Yeah this happens ... You need to set the speed in windows settings to the fastest

 

Hey OP, I can help you with that. I'm having same problem, so I decided to defeat PTP.

I did some research and I think my conclusions are correct. Here's my post on MS answers:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...e/ca01bc04-0db7-4241-bff9-192cfb5af012?page=2

So what you need to do is:
1. Disable PTP drivers
2. Install generic drivers (force way)

1. Disabling PTP drivers:
Go to device manager and locate "Human interface devices" node. Locate "HID-compliant touch pad" item and disable it. (To make sure, you may open device properties and on the Details tab, Hardware IDs property will have this line HID_DEVICE_UP:000D_U:0005 - this is how TPT reports itself).
Now, in the same node, disable "I2C HID Device" item.
Done. PTP is dead.

2. Installing generic Synaptics drivers:
Download generic Synaptics driver here: http://synaptics.com/en/drivers.php
In device manager, go to "Mice and other pointing devices" node and locate your touchpad disguised as "PS/2 mouse". Select "Update driver" from context menu and make it hard way: "Browse my PC" -> "Let me pick it myself" -> "Have disk" -> point to folder where you have unpacked downloaded driver into (x64 subfolder, to be precise). Windows will say that driver is not compatible. That's a lie. Press Yes. Reboot. You're on generic driver now. Scroll and 2/3/4-finger gestures are at your disposal.

During phase #2 Windows may complain about missing digital signature at driver's package (Synaptics' fault). There are 2 ways to circumvent it:
1. Disable driver signature enforcement (just google this whole phrase). This is easy but potentially creates security risk as from now any unsigned driver can be installed to the system.
2. Sign it with a valid certificate if you have one (also requires installed WDK).
I did mine by signing .inf file with my company's certificate, but I'm not sure if I can redistribute it.

From my experience, precision of generic driver is inferior to PTP, but it's free of PTP bugs and offers all extended features Synaptics has to offer. Or maybe it just requires tweaking (it has so many parameters).

 

My god man....It works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Let me play with this some more and see if I can figure out how to sign it. You are the man!!

 

I've got green light from my CEO. I will post signed catalog this evening.

 

Ok, here's signed catalog:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23524818/17.0.19_x64.zip

Extract files to WinWDF\x64\ folder of the Synaptics driver installation and proceed with phase #2 of the instructions above.
This is for v.17.0.19 64-bit generic Synaptics driver obtained from the link in the instructions. Won't work on anything else.

 

Thanks for this, works like a gem

 

I did as written but I am still having some issues. Driver is working and it's the correct one



PPtp hid is disabled.

But I still cant find synaptic control panel



Any suggestion?

 

Have you disabled I2C? Why do you have 2 more HID-compliant mice devices? What are they?

 

I knew I was missing something

Thanks, it was I2C indeed, now synaptic is showing as it should



P.s. other hid device was attached mouse and probably remaining of I2c (now I see only synaptic entry under mouse node)

Cheers.

 

Well luckily I have the touchscreen when I did this. I do like getting the flick features back, but the mouse pointing is crazy slow on the highest setting. I gave up slow scrolling (which actually works really well in chrome x64) for slow pointing. Not sure which trade off I can handle.

 

Yeah, I rolled back to official drivers as well at the end. Never got to work three finger taps with synaptic driver for whatever reason (even modifying directly regedit entries), cursor speed was painfully slow, and it was not really stable. I guess I will have to live with small 2 finger scroll lag for a while

 

Yes, it is crazy slow.
But it is painful in using default touch-pad driver,
because I cannot scroll in some software.
It is really stupid in Win 8.1 precision touch-pad.
Anyone can help to increase the speed of synaptic driver.

 

Is there someone crazy enough to test new driver re-signed with test certificate to work in Win8?
I'm attaching test certificates and re-signed cat file.

WARNING! Installing a certificate from untrusted source puts your PC to the risk. So if you don't trust me (and you shouldn't actually), you'll need to generate your own certificates (google makecert.exe), rebuild catalog file (google inf2cat.exe), and then re-sign it with your certificate (google signtool.exe).

Assuming you took my certificates(ha-ha, I warned you) or already generated yours, you need to do following:

1. Download 19.0.19.1 driver, go to WinWDF\x64 and replace SynTP.cat with the one from attachment.
2. Doubleclick root.cer, choose: Install -> Local machine -> Select Store -> Trusted Root CA
3. Doubleclick pub.cer, choose: Install -> Local machine -> Select Store -> Trusted Publishers

Now, you can install these drivers in Win8. Go to the first page of this thread, read my first big post and follow instructions there - it's same for these drivers.

 

From what I've seen so far:
- Unstable sensivity (non-uniform acceleration, false clicks, jumpy cursor)
- No dead zones for both scroll and cursor move
- Exellent scrolling performance
- All 2/3-finger gestures are working

 

hi everybody just a short (long) guide of a collection of different parts that i found useful and can help you too


firstly get the generic driver from synaptics

then go to device manager and go to the ps2 mouse and uninstall previous driver

1) Extract the files to another folder

2) Open the folder with extracted files copy the path of the x64 drivers

3) Go to Control PanelDevice ManagerMice and other pointing devices

4) Right click mice and other pointing devices, select Update Driver

browse the computer

then select HAVE DISK VERY IMPORTANT

5) Add the x64 drivers path

6) Select Dell Touchpad or synaptics

7) Install drivers

8) Restart
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but it probably wont work so

so see here http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ell-xps-13-9343-will-gladly-pay.775614/page-2

and here http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...c04-0db7-4241-bff9-192cfb5af012?page=2&auth=1

So what you need to do is:
1. Disable PTP drivers
2. Install generic drivers (force way)

1. Disabling PTP drivers:
Go to device manager and locate "Human interface devices" node (node means the little arrow which expands). Locate "HID-compliant touch pad" item and disable it. (To make sure, you may open device properties and on Details tab, in the dropdown go to Hardware IDs property will have this line HID_DEVICE_UP:000D_U:0005 - this is how TPT reports itself). (with mine i had a 4 instead of a 5
Now, in the same node, disable "I2C HID Device" item.
Done. PTP is dead.
the mouse wont work so use touchscreen
(i cant remember if i did a reboot here or not)

2. Installing generic Synaptics drivers:
Download generic Synaptics driver here: http://synaptics.com/en/drivers.php
In device manager, go to "Mice and other pointing devices" node and locate your touchpad disguised as "PS/2 mouse". Select "Update driver" from context menu and make it hard way: "Browse my PC" - "Let me pick it myself" - "Have disk" - point to folder where you have unpacked downloaded driver into (x64 subfolder, to be precise). Windows will say that driver is not compatible. That's a lie. Press Yes. Reboot. You're on generic driver now. Scroll and 2/3/4-finger gestures are at your disposal.

During phase #2 Windows may complain about missing digital signature at driver's package (Synaptics' fault). There are 2 ways to circumvent it:
1. Disable driver signature enforcement (just google this whole phrase). This is easy but potentially creates security risk as from now any unsigned driver can be installed to the system.
2. Sign it with a valid certificate if you have one (also requires installed WDK).
I did mine by signing .inf file with my company's certificate, but I'm not sure if I can redistribute it.

From my experience, precision of generic driver is inferior to PTP, but it's free of PTP bugs and offers all extended features Synaptics has to offer. Or maybe it just requires tweaking (it has so many parameters).

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now for chirascroll do this

Requires use of regedit

Navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Synaptics\SynTPCpl\Controls\03TabScroll\ 4OneFEdgeScrollChiralInfoText\ and inside the other window there will be a key called visibility

also do this for Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Synaptics\SynTPCpl\Controls\03TabScroll\ 4OneFEdgeScrollChiralCheckBox\ and inside the other window there will be a key called visibility

Find the items and

Change the Visibility key of both from 4 to 0

Open the Synaptics control panel, go to scroll tab, it will have appeared


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finally mess around with

If you want to tweak the settings for the three mouse-speed settings (MouseSpeed, MouseThreshold1, and MouseThreshold2), launch the registry editor and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse\.

Along with a few other settings, you'll see the three mouse-speed values in the right panel. Mouse-Speed is a multiplier that is set from 0 (always run at the basic speed) to 2 (multiply the calculated speed by 4). MouseThreshold1 indicates the number of pixels you must move the mouse between interrupts to automatically double the basic speed (unless MouseSpeed is not set to 0). By default, MouseThreshold1 ranges from 0 (do not introduce speed-doubling) to 10 pixels, but you can set its value to higher than 10 if you like. Setting the value closer to 1 makes Windows introduce speed-doubling sooner, which causes your pointer to pick up speed.

The last of the three pointer values, MouseThreshold2, behaves like MouseThreshold1 except that it causes Windows to again double the mouse's speed.


but i am not sure if it makes a difference
i have tested it and i dont think it makes any difference

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BUT here is what i did and it does work!

i downloaded a program called regshot which is free and it compares the registry before you make a change and after you make a change (there are probably other programs as well but i found this the simplest of the lot)

i then changed the mouse speed in the synaptics driver. i then used the reg compare and it directed me to a folder in the registry hkey current usere/software/synaptics/syntp/touchpadps2tm3014/pointermotionspeed

edit the speed to a higher number such as 300 instead of 190

i could not find this in the default windows program called regedit but i downloaded a program called registrar registry manager which shows a lot more than regedit and you can edit it there

you can use this method to find the appropriate registry key to edit for whatever you wish

i am no computer expert and accept no responsibility for these methods but hope you have enjoyed hacking and credit to the forums which got me this far

regards

 

Welcome to NBR and a great first post. This should help many.

 

Mee too. False clicks are getting me mad. Finally I returned to the windows drive :-(