Trackpad/Touchpad difficulties following recent repair

[PlainSnailing]

So following the long process of arranging for my Optimus II to be returned for repairs, I had the machine returned to me on the 3rd. Everything is in good order, with the keys now much more responsive without the years worth of dust built up underneath, but I'm having a problem with the touchpad. I need to rub my fingers around in a stroking motion for a good three-to-four second delay before it responds. This happens whenever I stop using the pad for a short spell or if I press a key. This has meant that for programs that involve WASD and the mouse, the functionality becomes abysmal. Its not as bad when browsing or running excel documents, but it certainly isn't helping.

I've scanned to see if the drivers were up to date, but in so doing, I've found quite a lot of adware that wasn't on the last copy of windows from when I bought the laptop originally. If somebody else encountered this problem and learned how to fix it, I'm desperate to know how. This is a nuiscance for working, but an outright curse for any gaming I would have liked to do in my spare time.

 

[Boozad]

Where did you have it repaired?

 

[PlainSnailing]

I returned it to PCS.

 

[Boozad]

I'd give PCS a call and ask about it.

 

[PlainSnailing]

I'm not at all pleased at the prospect of contacting them so soon. I'm hoping there is a patch fix or something software related, because there is no way I'm forking out even more money for a computer that was meant to be fixed the first time. I'll give them credit where credit is due, as they repaired a laptop I imagine others would have written-off, but come on..., I never had this problem with the track pad before. I'm going to look into some of these adware gimmicks that I've not seen before, as I never trust them, but I only suspect them seeing as they are new to me.

 

[ubuysa]

Have you checked through the Mouse section of the Control Panel yet? You'll need to be sure you have the latest drivers for your touchpad installed but, as long as you do, you'll likely find a bunch of options in the Mouse settings in Control Panel that may be able to help. One I'm thinking of in particular is called Sensitivity, or something similar. It's designed to stop the touchpad responding when you just brush it with your palm whilst typing. If that is set way down low you'll see the effect you describe. You may need to hunt for it, on my Optimus IV it's buried under a button labelled Options on the Elan tab of the mouse. It really is worth exploring all the settings in here, they do have a major impact on the way the touchpad operates.

Personally I would stay away from any and all "aware gimmicks" and you're right not to trust them. They will not be designed for your specific hardware so they may even make things worse than they are now. You can also usually guarantee that you'll become a major spam target after "registering" to use them and at worst you may even install an unwanted trojan.

Your problem could be hardware related, but it sounds to me much more like a config or driver issue, so I'd look there first.

 

[PlainSnailing]

Well I'd checked the mouse menu previously, and I didn't notice any sensitivity slider at the time. I did find the options button under the Elan tab, yet its blanked out and I can't access it. The drivers are up-to-date. They were the first thing I checked after I started searching for a solution. I can't manage to unblock the options menu, and the only solution I can think of is by temporarily disabling the device to see if that helps, but I haven't got a usb mouse at the moment, so I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot just yet.

 

[ubuysa]

Well I'd checked the mouse menu previously, and I didn't notice any sensitivity slider at the time. I did find the options button under the Elan tab, yet its blanked out and I can't access it. The drivers are up-to-date. They were the first thing I checked after I started searching for a solution. I can't manage to unblock the options menu, and the only solution I can think of is by temporarily disabling the device to see if that helps, but I haven't got a usb mouse at the moment, so I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot just yet.

It's worrying that the Elan tab is greyed-out, that sounds like the root of your problem I think. I suppose you have no idea whether it was grey before you had it repaired? Have you checked the touchpad device in Device Manager to make sure it's properly enabled and that there are no conflicts? It might be worth trying to update the driver from there just to see.....?

It might be worth giving PCS a call too?

 

[PlainSnailing]

Well the whole Elan tab isn't greyed out, but it does look like this:



I looked in the device manager menu and double-checked the drivers, but I'm stumped. Clearly there is one small function somewhere that has been activated that has blocked my access to the options, but I don't know what it is. Also, I don't recall whether the button was greyed out before, but seeing as I never had this problem the first time around, I doubt I would ever have checked.

 

[ubuysa]

Well the whole Elan tab isn't greyed out, but it does look like this:

View attachment 3457

I looked in the device manager menu and double-checked the drivers, but I'm stumped. Clearly there is one small function somewhere that has been activated that has blocked my access to the options, but I don't know what it is. Also, I don't recall whether the button was greyed out before, but seeing as I never had this problem the first time around, I doubt I would ever have checked.

Ah. Now on my Optimus IV (same touchpad I would have thought?) the touchapd is listed in that box as an "Elan Smart-Pad", I think the "Standard PS/2 Mouse" on yours is indicative of the wrong (or not properly installed) driver. Windows is not recognising your touchpad as an Elan but only as a bog-standard touchpad mouse I reckon.

Perhaps you might try uninstalling the driver from Device Manager buy right-clicking the touchpad entry and selecting Uninstall. Also answer Yes to the box asking to delete the driver. Then reboot and install the proper driver. See if that helps.

 

[PlainSnailing]

Problem has been solved! The trouble was with the drivers, but not what you had suggested. It turned out that my pad was in-fact a standard PS/2 mouse touchpad, and it was the drivers for the Elan device that was causing the conflict. I took longer to finally delete the drivers as I had to borrow a usb mouse from somebody so I didn't chop my hands off so to speak. Still, I'm now running with a run-of-the-mill driver for a run-of-the-mill pad and everything is working smoothly.

 

[ubuysa]

Problem has been solved! The trouble was with the drivers, but not what you had suggested. It turned out that my pad was in-fact a standard PS/2 mouse touchpad, and it was the drivers for the Elan device that was causing the conflict. I took longer to finally delete the drivers as I had to borrow a usb mouse from somebody so I didn't chop my hands off so to speak. Still, I'm now running with a run-of-the-mill driver for a run-of-the-mill pad and everything is working smoothly.

Good news!