Touchpad Driver

[Kathrine Selvage]

Iuse Ubuntu 14.04 on a laptop, usually with an external usb mouse and keyboard and screen connected. Sometimes, however, I unplug all of them and move the laptop and keep using it with the builtin keyboard and screen and touchpad.

At random times it happens that the touchpad stops working (but if I plug the usb mouse, the usb mouse does work). Though this happens very rarely, when it does it's a great annoyance, as I'm forced to reboot if I need the touchpad to work again.

Is there some workaround that I can try, such as killing some process that would automatically restart, or some command that would cause the touchpad driver to restart or refresh or something? Anything that may "wake up" the touchpad without having to reboot?

Next: Notice where it says id=X in one long column for every input device. You want to find the device id that corresponds to the input device you want to disable (Maybe something that sounds like "touchpad"). Then replace X in the following command with the id number representing the input device you want to disable:

Note: If you're not sure which device id you should use to disable the touchpad, then you can find out by testing random id's and seeing if your mouse pad still works. Make sure you are NOT DOING ANYTHING IMPORTANT. Save all your work and be prepared to restart your computer if you do something like disable your keyboard. (You may have trouble trying to enable it again if you can't type into the terminal.

Reason: I desperately needed an answer to this problem because the problems I was experiencing with my touchpad made doing any kind of work impossible. Suddenly, at some random moment when using my laptop, for apparently no reason, my touchpad goes into some kind of "special mode". Merely moving one finger on my touchpad would cause the screen to scroll, instead of actually moving the cursor of the mouse on the screen so it was impossible to get the mouse to hover over anything in broswer without considerable coordinating efforts to account for the scrolling screen and non moving mouse. I wanted to find a way, WITHOUT RESTARTING THE LAPTOP, to reset the touchpad. On the plus side, resetting the touchpad with the method above actually fixes my problem.

Update:To make resetting the touchpad even easier, I made a hotkey for the above listed commands. When my touchpad goes on the fritz, I simply do the key combination ctrl+super+r and it does the reset for me. Quick and easy.

-Inside this file, put in two of the three (the last two) previous commands listed above except, instead of using an X id number for the device, since it's subject to change with added peripherals (maybe??) you can do use this instead:

-Now what you do, you replace the X (which was an id before) for xinput disable X and xinput enable X with the name corresponding to that id inside single quotes. For example, from the above, if you wanted to do it for id=13, my touchpad device, you would use:

I was having that problem with one laptop repeatedly until I noticed that the touchpad of that computer had its own On/Off switch which I must have been hitting by accident. Notably, the switch did not help to turn it back on. I just became careful not to press it, and before long I took to using an external wireless keyboard with integrated wireless touchpad, and I haven't had that problem since.

UPDATE: (Note: link below broken, solution is above)Since posting this "solution" I posted a comment which apparently met the user's needs. Having only just now learned that the comments remain only temporarily and are automatically deleted, I'm reposting the content of the useful comment below that it may be preserved for others:

What may be easier, and which worked for me, was reloading the driver in the kernel. The following code first finds the name of the kernel driver which handles the touch pad, then unloads it with rmmod and reloads it with modprobe. Note that you need to be root to run these commands, so run sudo su first.

For some unknown reason: This laptop's touchpad will auto-magically become non-functional (yet is still running AFAIK). I have attempted to remove the USB-based optical mouse; yet run into the same issue.

Similar problem Latitude 7430, Ubuntu 22.04. Touchpad would randomly stop or require I use 4 fingers on it at once to move. Building on the solution outlined by user3499524, I completed a short script:

I am facing trouble for past few days where the touchpad stops working - as in scrolling using the touchpad. I have to go to the synaptics driver folder and start SynTPEnh.exe manually. BUt after sometime, say opening folders, browsers, system hangs for few seconds and the process stops.

Are you now running with driver version 15.1.6.64? It's the latest driver available here. Strangely my latest installed driver was a newer one, device management states version 15.3.29.0 so I think it's the newer driver version that doesn't work properly and causes the crash?

I want to disable the driver for my touchpad. It is called "PS/2 Compatible Mouse". If I go to properties the disable button is grayed out. There is also no option to disable in the context menu if I right click on it in device manager. A attached a screenshot of the issue below. I am using Windows 8 but I'm guessing the issue would be the same in Windows 7.

Click right mouse button to "PS/2 Compatible Mouse" > choose update driver > driver from your computer (not automatically) > choose driver from list > unclick "Show compatible hardware"...and choose another type (I chose mouse from Acer - API USB). Your touchpad will be disabled after restart of your computer. Then (for sure) click on disable driver in your device manager.

I reinstalled a Windows 7 Laptop (Dell Latitude E5510), but upon reinstalling i found that the touchpad didnt work, which was annoying. I have scoured the internet looking for drivers, but i cant find them anywhere.

There are several drivers that look like they might work, but when i go to install them the files extract, but then the installation errors and it just brings up the greyed out restart or close program box. Restarting it just causes a loop so the only thing left is to stop it.

Use HWinfo32 Free Download HWiNFO Sofware Installer & Portable for Windows, DOS - See what it lists for the exact name of the touchpad model and google the name + driver. - stay away from any links dell or hp give you.

Still struggling with my cheap Schneider laptop (SCL141CTP), sometimes, I feel like throwing it against a wall, what with the touchpad acting erratically (to say the least): at times, a double-tap won't register at all, and I have to do it three, sometimes four times to get it to work; some other times, the pointer will remain stuck to whatever part of a webpage it was hovering above, and an attempt to move it will register as a tap, etc...

The basic, Windows 10-installed driver doesn't offer anything in the way of fine-tuning and customization, and I can't even find the name of the vendor that manufactured it, so I'd like to know if there's a generic driver package that fits on the Atom x5-z8350 platform, or if a reputable vendor (e.g.: Synaptics, Alps, etc...) does propose Atom-compatible drivers that I could install in lieu of the crappy OEM one.

This processor is essentially what is in one of the Intel Compute Sticks. Try this driver: -Stick-Intel-HD-Graphics-Driver-for-STK1AW32SC?product=91065 Download Intel HD Graphics Driver for STK1AW32SC.

Like Al pointed out in a previous reply, this laptop is cheap, and I can't expect it to perform like a MacBook Pro. All in all, this platform, however limited (2GB of RAM, 32GB of eMMC), is relatively nice to work on; the keyboard is a piece of crap, and, obviously, the touchpad too, but the PC is compact, lightweight, and battery life is OK. Not great, but OK.

Support by the OEM is non-existent (they do have a Customer Support department here in France, but when it comes to solving actual issues, they hunker down and hope it'll go away), so I have to pick your brain here...

No, no. Go to the Details tab and look at the Hardware Ids. The first entry typically is the one you want. It will have a Vendor Id (VEN_xxxxx) and a Device Id (DEV_xxxxx). Take these two ids and do a web search. For example, in my laptop, it lists VEN_ELAN and DEV_0501. When I search on the web, I find that it is an ELANTECH touchpad.

Got it. As a matter of fact, I'd already done that, but vendor ID "258A" is hard to find. However, your mentioning Elan triggered a memory from my past research, and I downloaded a driver from that vendor.

Upon installation, when I was prompted to start the software, I got an error message stating that no device linked to that driver was found on my PC. I pointed a driver update at the folder where the driver had been written on my HDD, and was told by Windows that "the best driver was already installed, and would I please take a hike"...

From past experience, I know that drivers from Synaptics and Alps will install just fine, but won't be recognized by the hardware, so basically, I'm stuck with this touchpad, probably until I blow a gasket and throw the PC at the wall.

Intel does not verify all solutions, including but not limited to any file transfers that may appear in this community. Accordingly, Intel disclaims all express and implied warranties, including without limitation, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, as well as any warranty arising from course of performance, course of dealing, or usage in trade.

Scrybe Gesture Workflows can greatly enhance your productivity by expanding your Synaptics TouchPad's capabilities. By combining Synaptics Gesture Suite's scrolling, zooming and rotation gestures with Scrybe's symbols, one can unleash the power of the TouchPad.

The Synaptics device driver is customized to meet the specific requirements of your device manufacturer. To ensure that you get the appropriate device driver for your system, download your Synaptics device driver from your system manufacturer's support website.

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