Touchpad drivers on new Dell Inspiron 15 not very good

[Hugh_Mungus]

I have a new Dell Inspiron 15 (5000 series) laptop and the touchpad has been erratic from the first day I unboxed it. Most of the time, it works okay but occasionally, the left click just gets ignored. I can click it repeatedly for *minutes* and absolutely nothing happens, then it suddenly starts working again. I went to the Dell site and installed the latest touchpad drivers and something very odd happened. The first few minutes after doing the install, the touchpad worked a lot better, then started messing up again. I hadn't rebooted yet despite the Dell site saying the computer would automatically reboot after installing the driver, so I rebooted manually. Again, the touchpad worked much better after the reboot, but only for a few minutes; then it started degrading again.

How can I fix this? I can't even find the settings to tel you which touchpad I've got so maybe that's a starting point. If you could tell me where to find that out - I can't find it in Device Manager or Control Panel - that might help.

Would it help to go the site for the manufacturer of the device - Synaptic or whoever? Are there other drivers that would work better for me? How would I find them?

I'm almost ready to return this machine to the store for an exchange but I'm not sure if another Inspiron 15 is going to work any better.

 

[viveknayyar007]

Hello Hugh_Mungus

Many times the updated drivers don't work fluently due to compatibility issues. In such cases, it is advisable to use one or two level earlier version of the drivers.

To start with, you can try removing the touchpad driver from the Device Manager. After this, restart the laptop and use it with the standard touchpad driver installed by Windows itself.

Use the laptop for a while and check if the issue still persists. In case you no longer experience the issue, rest assured that the problem is with the driver, and installing the older version may help.

Feel free to reply for further assistance.

Cheers!!

 

[Hugh_Mungus]

Thank you very much for your suggestion. I'm giving it a try even as I write this. I finally found the touchpad drivers in Device Manager, uninstalled them, and immediately lost the use of the touchpad Luckily, I read a post the other day on restarting Windows 10 without the touchpad and remembered it well enough to do my restart without the touchpad. After rebooting, I immediately got the use of my touchpad back; looking in Device Manager it seems to be a Microsoft driver there now. (I didn't think to see if the driver was identified as a Dell driver before I uninstalled it so there's a chance I'm using the same driver as before but I'm inclined to doubt it.)

It seems to be working okay so far. I encountered most of my difficulties in games so I'll have to play a few games before I'm sure that things are working better now

I have to say that I'm surprised that touchpad drivers are still an issue. It's been something like 20 years that touchpads have been available on laptops; you'd think they would be as close to perfect as anything can get at this point.

I'll try to remember to post here again in a few days with an assessment of whether I now have fully satisfactory touchpad drivers in place.

 

[Hugh_Mungus]

I've given the default drivers a try for several days but they are NOT behaving well at all. They actually seem to be getting worse by the day which is completely beyond my comprehension. Just to show you how bad it is, I've just spent a half hour trying to bookmark a website in Firefox which needs to go into a new folder. Every time I click on the New Folder option, it shows me the default name of "New Folder" and then, *before I can type the name I want*, it assumes I've clicked when I haven't and creates the folder with the name New Folder instead of the name I want. I delete the folder (which involves exiting one dialog and going to another) then try again but it's the same damn thing every time.

Almost everything I do is an exercise in frustration because of this touchpad! It keeps acting as if I've clicked when I haven't. It sometimes does two or even three fast clicks even though I have not touched the touchpad! Naturally, that messes things up because the clicks cause the programs to do things that I don't want them to do, then I have to undo the wrong thing they did before I can get back to what I actually wanted to do.

I would dearly love to solve this problem. Can anyone suggest a way to fix my touchpad? It's either set on "incredibly sensitive" or it's possessed by Dark Forces so I need to make it less sensitive. Failing that, I need an exorcist

 

[viveknayyar007]

I've given the default drivers a try for several days but they are NOT behaving well at all. They actually seem to be getting worse by the day which is completely beyond my comprehension. Just to show you how bad it is, I've just spent a half hour trying to bookmark a website in Firefox which needs to go into a new folder. Every time I click on the New Folder option, it shows me the default name of "New Folder" and then, *before I can type the name I want*, it assumes I've clicked when I haven't and creates the folder with the name New Folder instead of the name I want. I delete the folder (which involves exiting one dialog and going to another) then try again but it's the same damn thing every time.

Almost everything I do is an exercise in frustration because of this touchpad! It keeps acting as if I've clicked when I haven't. It sometimes does two or even three fast clicks even though I have not touched the touchpad! Naturally, that messes things up because the clicks cause the programs to do things that I don't want them to do, then I have to undo the wrong thing they did before I can get back to what I actually wanted to do.

I would dearly love to solve this problem. Can anyone suggest a way to fix my touchpad? It's either set on "incredibly sensitive" or it's possessed by Dark Forces so I need to make it less sensitive. Failing that, I need an exorcist

Hello again Hugh_Mungus

It looks like the driver is not compatible. I could have thought of the hardware issue but as you mentioned earlier, most of the times the touchpad works fine.

I would now suggest you to go to Dell's Driver Download Page, download the latest driver for the touchpad (assuming that you have noticed the vendor of the touchpad in the Device Manager by now), and try installing it.

If the latest driver fails to work properly, you can try installing one-level or two-level earlier version of the driver and see if the problem is resolved.

Feel free to report back if further assistance is needed.

Cheers!!

 

[Hugh_Mungus]

Hello again Hugh_Mungus

It looks like the driver is not compatible. I could have thought of the hardware issue but as you mentioned earlier, most of the times the touchpad works fine.

I would now suggest you to go to Dell's Driver Download Page, download the latest driver for the touchpad (assuming that you have noticed the vendor of the touchpad in the Device Manager by now), and try installing it.

If the latest driver fails to work properly, you can try installing one-level or two-level earlier version of the driver and see if the problem is resolved.

Feel free to report back if further assistance is needed.

Cheers!!

I'm glad to see you're still around (I expected that this thread would simply get ignored because it was perceived as dead and that I'd have to start the whole mess over again in a new thread.)

The thing is that I started with the drivers that came with the laptop, which was brand new just last month. When I started having problems, the first thing I did was to go to the Dell site and download new touchpad drivers but they were no better; they might even have been worse. (Unfortunately, I didn't notice the version number on the original drivers so it's possible the "new" Dell drivers were the same as what was originally on the machine.) When I tried your suggestion of using the generic Windows drivers, they actually seemed noticeably better at first but then they seemed to get worse and worse over time.

That really baffles me. How can the behaviour of a driver change over time if I'm not updating it???

That aside, I'm really get frustrated here. I've tried three different drivers (assuming the original and "new" drivers were different) and whichever one I use seems to get noticeably worse over time. I feel as if I've already done all the right things but to no effect.

I've been googling this a bit and one suggestion I saw was going to the original manufacturer of the touchpad. How do I find out who that is? I gather there are several manufacturers, Synaptics and Alps being the two biggest, and I'm really not sure how to determine which manufacturer made mine. Or is that likely to get me a worse outcome than sticking with Dell drivers?

I think I'm past the exchange period on this computer now and if Dell operates like ASUS, who made my previous laptop, getting the manufacturer to sort this out would involve sending my laptop in to Dell, waiting two or three weeks, and then maybe getting an entirely different computer back. That is NOT an attractive scenario. My ASUS is on its last legs and may not work that long.

I'd be grateful for your advice on this matter.

 

[viveknayyar007]

Hello again Hugh_Mungus

It looks like the driver is not compatible. I could have thought of the hardware issue but as you mentioned earlier, most of the times the touchpad works fine.

I would now suggest you to go to Dell's Driver Download Page, download the latest driver for the touchpad (assuming that you have noticed the vendor of the touchpad in the Device Manager by now), and try installing it.

If the latest driver fails to work properly, you can try installing one-level or two-level earlier version of the driver and see if the problem is resolved.

Feel free to report back if further assistance is needed.

Cheers!!

I'm glad to see you're still around (I expected that this thread would simply get ignored because it was perceived as dead and that I'd have to start the whole mess over again in a new thread.)

The thing is that I started with the drivers that came with the laptop, which was brand new just last month. When I started having problems, the first thing I did was to go to the Dell site and download new touchpad drivers but they were no better; they might even have been worse. (Unfortunately, I didn't notice the version number on the original drivers so it's possible the "new" Dell drivers were the same as what was originally on the machine.) When I tried your suggestion of using the generic Windows drivers, they actually seemed noticeably better at first but then they seemed to get worse and worse over time.

That really baffles me. How can the behaviour of a driver change over time if I'm not updating it???

That aside, I'm really get frustrated here. I've tried three different drivers (assuming the original and "new" drivers were different) and whichever one I use seems to get noticeably worse over time. I feel as if I've already done all the right things but to no effect.

I've been googling this a bit and one suggestion I saw was going to the original manufacturer of the touchpad. How do I find out who that is? I gather there are several manufacturers, Synaptics and Alps being the two biggest, and I'm really not sure how to determine which manufacturer made mine. Or is that likely to get me a worse outcome than sticking with Dell drivers?

I think I'm past the exchange period on this computer now and if Dell operates like ASUS, who made my previous laptop, getting the manufacturer to sort this out would involve sending my laptop in to Dell, waiting two or three weeks, and then maybe getting an entirely different computer back. That is NOT an attractive scenario. My ASUS is on its last legs and may not work that long.

I'd be grateful for your advice on this matter.

Hello again Hugh_Mungus

At this point what you can do is, contact Dell's Technical Support Team and ask them about the manufacturer of the touchpad of your device. If you have already registered your device and they have your laptop details in their records, they may provide you the needed details and may also help you resolve the issue.

However, before calling them, you can try this:

> Go to Device Manager.

> Expand Mice and other pointing devices.

> Right-click Dell Touchpad and click Properties.

> On the Dell Touchpad Properties box, make sure that you are on the General tab.

> You can find the name of the vendor written in front of the Manufacturer label.

Also, if possible, can you please try connecting an external USB mouse and see if it works normally?

Hope this helps.

Cheers!!

 

[Hugh_Mungus]

Hello again Hugh_Mungus

At this point what you can do is, contact Dell's Technical Support Team and ask them about the manufacturer of the touchpad of your device. If you have already registered your device and they have your laptop details in their records, they may provide you the needed details and may also help you resolve the issue.

However, before calling them, you can try this:

> Go to Device Manager.

> Expand Mice and other pointing devices.

> Right-click Dell Touchpad and click Properties.

> On the Dell Touchpad Properties box, make sure that you are on the General tab.

> You can find the name of the vendor written in front of the Manufacturer label.

Also, if possible, can you please try connecting an external USB mouse and see if it works normally?

Hope this helps.

Cheers!! [/quotemsg]

I'm running Windows 10 and I don't see anything about touchpads in the properties for "mice and pointing devices". I looked under Human Interface Devices and found an HID-compatible touchpad. In the Properties/Details tab, I selected Manufacturer and got "(Standard system devices)", not a manufacturer name. The "Provider" value was Microsoft.

I tried using my wireless mouse and it seemed to work okay. Since the problems are often especially pronounced when I do electronic jigsaw puzzles, I put together a few pieces on my current puzzle and the mouse seemed to behave properly.

 

[viveknayyar007]

Hello again Hugh_Mungus

At this point what you can do is, contact Dell's Technical Support Team and ask them about the manufacturer of the touchpad of your device. If you have already registered your device and they have your laptop details in their records, they may provide you the needed details and may also help you resolve the issue.

However, before calling them, you can try this:

> Go to Device Manager.

> Expand Mice and other pointing devices.

> Right-click Dell Touchpad and click Properties.

> On the Dell Touchpad Properties box, make sure that you are on the General tab.

> You can find the name of the vendor written in front of the Manufacturer label.

Also, if possible, can you please try connecting an external USB mouse and see if it works normally?

Hope this helps.

Cheers!!

I'm running Windows 10 and I don't see anything about touchpads in the properties for "mice and pointing devices". I looked under Human Interface Devices and found an HID-compatible touchpad. In the Properties/Details tab, I selected Manufacturer and got "(Standard system devices)", not a manufacturer name. The "Provider" value was Microsoft.

I tried using my wireless mouse and it seemed to work okay. Since the problems are often especially pronounced when I do electronic jigsaw puzzles, I put together a few pieces on my current puzzle and the mouse seemed to behave properly.


[/quotemsg]

Hello again Hugh_Mungus

Looks like the only option you are left with is to talk to Dell's Technical Support Team and ask them about the manufacturer.

Cheers!!

 

[Hugh_Mungus]

The latest Windows 10 update may have fixed things for me. The touchpad seems somewhat less flakey since that time so perhaps a driver update took place. I want to give it a few days to see whether I can live with it as it now is.