Upgraded to Windows XP Pro and having issues with the touchpad

[trishc]

I upgraded a Dell Inspiron 3500 laptop to Windows XP Pro. The laptop has a touchpad device and a external mouse. I find that when typing in any program that the cursor will jump to wherever the mouse pointer happens to be setting(this happens intermittenly). I believe this is caused by the touchpad. I was going to disable the touchpad but it appears that windows does not see it there (even though the touchpad works). If I go to control panel\mouse the setting show a Microsoft PS2 mouse only, the same in device manager. I tried unistalling the external mouse and restarted the pc without the external mouse attached and XP installed the PS2 mouse again. I went to Dell's sight and found they use Synaptic and Alps touchpads but did not find a driver for the 3500. I did try their Synaptic driver for other systems and it said it only installs the driver to a system recognized touchpad. Since the pc does not see the touchpad the drivers did no good. I have even looked in the BIOS to see if there is a way to turn the touchpad off with no success. Can anybody help me out here please, I don't know what else to do at this point.

Thanks in Advance for your replies
Trish

 

[mal103]

Keep looking for a Synaptics driver for your Dell, if you can't find one then contact Dell, they have a fairly good support area on their web site.
I work with a lot of Dell laptops and have similar problems with the curser jumping about, sometimes we end up giving the user an external keyboard for when they need to do lots of typing. One thing to try is to tighten the screws underneath that support the keyboard, they are sometimes marked with a K, this works on Latitude's.
An exteme answer is to take the keyboard out, if the touchpad has a separate ribbon cable then disconnect it.

 

[Nathan123]

Yo Bro try to delete the driver using the Add/Remove Program. And if you are familiar the RegEdit Program Use it and remove any trace of the said driver and do a complete install of the driver. If the problem still is present after a reboot check the touchpad for dirts and try removing the cables and reinstalling them.

Knowledge is a gift from God sharing it with friends and strangers, make you a better person, inside and outside.

 

[herrdoktor]

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/format.aspx?releaseid=r20166&c=us&l=en&s=gen&cs=

Release Title Input: Synaptics Touchpad, Driver, Windows 98, English, Inspiron 3500, v. 1.0, A01
Release Date 06/25/1999
Category Input Device Drivers

I just solved a similar problem with a Compaq 1278. Upgraded to Win XP Pro but did not load any drivers Compaq specific. When typing, the cursor would jump back and type over or insert typing at a previous spot. I installed the Synaptics driver, restarted the laptop and went to control panel/mouse...before I only had PS2 mouse options...now I had 10 tabs...go to "touch" and adjust "touch sensitivity" and "Palmcheck" to a heavy or maximum setting. (the Palmcheck on mine said "Helps to prevent accidental pointing while typing." Copy and paste the above link and it should take you right to the page to download the driver.
I used a Win98 driver and it worked fine.(WinXP was not available)
Hope this helps!
HerrDoktor

 

[trishc]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. Unfortunately I have been unsuccessful in resolving the issue. HerrDoktor when I tried the 98 driver it would not install kept giving me a message that it was for Win 95 and stops the install. Guess the difference is you were putting it on a Compaq and I was putting it on a Dell, who knows. Anyway thanks again for the suggestions and if anyone has any more ideas I would appreciate hearing from you. Otherwise it looks like I will be rebuilding the laptop when my boss goes on vacation the end of next month.

Trishc

 

[herrdoktor]

http://www.synaptics.com/support/downloads.cfm#drivers

Trishc,
Try the above link to Synaptics and download a WinXP driver. Synaptics cautions that it may not work for certain manufacturers, but it may be worth giving it a try. You can always remove the driver if it doesn't work. Let me know how it turns out.
HerrDoktor

 

[trishc]

HerrDoktor Thanks for the suggestion. I did try it and has it was almost at the end of install it gave me a message saying there was a severe internal error. Everything seemed to work as it had before the install, so I got to thinking that maybe it was not a Synaptics touchpad, but maybe an ALPS touchpad. I put on a Alps driver and while it did change properties of the mouse I still didn't have the option to adjust the touchpad at all. So I gave my boss a workaround I covered the touchpad with a small piece of cardboard (he always uses an external mouse) so the cursor no longer jumps. Not a pretty solution, but he can atleast type now without any problems.

Thanks again to everyone for trying to help!!