boredom

Hey guys, i have a dell inspiron 700m that will not use the touchpad. The optical mouse is working fine, but the touchpad will not react at all. Ive tried reinstalled 5 different drivers. Nothing seems to be working, i popped the computer apart and the wires seem fine. Does anyone know what could be the cause of this?

TriggerFinger

hi,

by default the touchpad should work fine with Windows XP (upon installation before actual drivers are installed). of course you can install the drivers from the DELL website. make sure you first uninstall the related drivers in Device Manager and any related programs in ADD/REMOVE programs in the Control Panel.

if these do not work and wires/connections for the touchpad are OK, you may be looking at a defective touchpad.

boredom

Ive checked the wires, they look fine and i installed the drivers from the dell site. Now, the drivers succefully install but they dont run, so i go into the C:/dell/drivers and find whichever it is that is the touchpad drivers(its some random numbers) i execute the synaptic program and it says there is no synaptic touchpad installed. Now im almost positive synaptic is default for dell now?

boredom

Neither of the mouse buttons work as well.

TriggerFinger

if it cannot find the hardware, it could mean a malfunctioning touchpad. if you have checked the wires/connections of the touchpad (hopefully you checked both ends of the flat cable), and they are seated well, you can say it is indeed hardware. reseat the cables to be sure.

usually what i do is run a different operating system like a linux live CD (ex. knoppix) and see if the linux drivers recognizes the touchpad (suspecting a drivers issue). if in linux the touchpad seem to be 'missing' or not recognized, then i focus on the hardware. it is good if you have something (a spare bezel with touchpad and/or a spare flat cable) to swap it with for testing purposes.