Synaptics touchpad strange behavior

[Maynard]

Hello everyone

So I've had my M17x R4 for a few weeks now. I found strange driver related Synaptics behavior.

It is "disable internal pointing device when external USB pointing device is attached" not working either in mouse settings nor the Alien Touch.

To make it work, I have to start Alien Touch or open mouse settings and then the touchpad turns off.

I know one can "override" this manually disabling the touchpad with Fn + F12 but since my keyboard is broken (I'm awaiting the technician to replace the malfunctioning keyboards connector ) I can't do that.

I have to add I've already reinstalled OS twice, the problem persisted from the same beginning.

Could someone please verify if this problem exists in your systems?

[Michael]

Are you using dells official touch pad driver?

[ratinox]

In my experience, that option doesn't work properly if you have any third-party mouse drivers installed. Try removing all third party mouse drivers other than the touchpad driver.

[Maynard]

Thanks guys for your replies.

So I use only Dells official driver, no Logitechs driver besides that one OS installed automatically, when I plugged in the device for the first time. I even obey the driver which Windows Update suggests.

More to this, disabling the touch pad with Device Settings also doesn't work. Simply nothing works, all the time with every restart, the touch pad enables itself. I have to use either Fn + F12 or open control panel - mouse settings.

You know what, I'm starting thinking to myself, this is truly a aliens ware At least as far as drivers are concerned (at the moment I think it is a drivers related issue).

[ratinox]

My suspicion at this point is that Windows is reenabling the Logitech drivers. Using the uninstall tools (Control Panel -> Uninstall) does not always remove third party driver INFs and DLLs from the system. Windows will happily use those instead of the stock Windows drivers when you next connect the device. You need to dig into Device Manager to really remove them. Connect the device, start up Device Manager, find the device, and remove driver. Disconnect the device. Connect the device. Windows should use its own mouse drivers. If it still uses Logitech drivers then you'll have to restart in Safe Mode and manually root out the Logitech INFs and DLLs.

Edit: This isn't unique to Alienware. I have an Asus netbook and an HP netbook, both with Synaptics touchpads, and both have problems with the automatic disable if external mice are connected if any third-party mouse drivers other than the Synaptics driver are loaded.

[Maynard]

I think I've managed to make the synaptics touch pad work properly.

Here's what I done.

First I uninstalled AlienFX, then the Synaptics Pointing Device Driver from Programs and Features. Next uninstall PS/2 pointing device from Device Menager, whole registry clean with the CCleaner, restart.

After restart the touch pad didn't changed its appearance to "no driver" in Device Manager.

Fn + F12 worked from this point.

Then I installed again the SPDD, restart, installed AlienFX, restart and everything works normally.

Somehow (I have no idea how as I didn't mess with the software at all) the driver got corrupted.

ratinox: I hadn't have use the Logitechs driver at all, just the default Windows driver which OS installs automatically with the first usb mouse use.

Thanks for your help and best regards.

[wesleyalex]

If you already had reinstall your OS, probably the touchpad is broken.

[miki_11]

same problem here, I used to "disable internal pointing device when external USB pointing device is attached" on my M17x R2, but sometimes when I removed my mouse the internal mouse didnt work D:

solution?...just keep using both