Question

Dell TouchPad no longer working after installing USB Mouse and Keyboard

Asked by: Jared_mc

On my fathers Dell Inspiron 8500 laptop, I installed a Microsoft Wireless Laser 4000 USB keyboard and Mouse. At some point after the install the Touchpad stopped working totally. In the system tray the Touchpad icon is no longer present.

The first steps I took to fix the problem were to reinstall the drivers for the Touchpad from Dells website (below).

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R113813&SystemID=INS_PNT_P4_8500&servicetag=&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=2514&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=6&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=17&fileid=149404

After the driver was installed and the computer restarted the touchpad still did not work. So from that point I went into the Device Manager to see if the device was disabled. When I looked under the Input Devices options it only lists the Microsoft Mouse, so I went to views then turned on the View Hidden Devices. Now the Touchpad appears as the Alps Touchpad but has a yellow exclamation point. I then when into the properties and it says that the device can not start but that it is enabled.

So then I restart the computer and go into the BIOS to see if the Touchpad is disabled there but when I go to the settings for the Mouse it says that it is enabled.

So I go back to the Dell support site and download the Driver Reset Tool I run it, it detects that the Touchpad is disabled and will reset the driver. After the computer restarts again its still not working.

So now I try to use an older version of the driver located on the dell site as well but that doesnt work either. So I go back into the Device Manager and uninstall the Touchpad driver. Then I go into the locations were the drivers were installed and delete all of them. Then I restarted the computer upon restart normally when an integrated device is uninstalled a new hardware balloon will pop up when the computer boots but I noticed it didnt in this case for the Touchpad.

So I go back into the device manager the yet again the Touchpad is only visible under the Hidden Device view with the Yellow exclamation point again.

At this point I try to see if there are any more up-to-date drivers for the device and I located these at this site. (Below)

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7121

From this site I used the drivers for version v7.1.102.7 which came from Dells website. The install was successfully but the touchpad still did not work even after the restart. When I went into the Device Manager I was only able to locate the Touchpad under the Hidden Device again but this time the name for it was called Dell Touchpad and in the properties it gave an Error Code 24.

At this point I uninstall the drivers again and am back to square one. So at this point the next time I am going I was going to try to uninstall the Microsoft USB Combo and if that didnt work I was going to open the computer up to see if the ribbon cable for the Touchpad and the trackball is either broken or damaged.

So I am looking for any advice to fix this problem if anyone can offer me some guidance or suggestions I can try please let me know.

Thank You

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Asked On
2009-01-06 at 07:24:01ID24028399
Tags

Touchpad

,

Dell

,

USB

,

Keyboard

,

Mouse

Topics

Microsoft Hardware

,

Peripherals

,

General Laptop

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
6

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Answers

 

by: andrew_aj1Posted on 2009-01-06 at 08:34:18ID: 23306085

When you remove the external mouse/keyboard from the system does the touchpad work? If so make sure you have the latest Dell touchpad drivers installed and go to the Control Panel and then to Mouse. Inside the mouse control panel there should be an option that states something like 'disable touchpad when external mouse is connected'. Make sure that is not checked (unless you now want it).

If the touchpad does not work with the external keyboard/mouse removed the touchpad itself may be bad.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

 

by: Jared_mcPosted on 2009-01-06 at 09:05:16ID: 23306485

I did forget to mention that the Touchpad does not work if you remove the USB mouse and keyboard even after a restart.

Under the Mouse in Control Panel their is no option to disable Touchpad in fact when going to that it really takes you to the Microsoft GUI for the mouse not the standard mouse options.

As mentioned before I did try to install the lastest drviers and the older drivers for the touchpad and the problem still occurs.

I was afraid that might be the case that it has gone bad that would cause the trackball to fail as well?

 

by: andrew_aj1Posted on 2009-01-06 at 09:16:57ID: 23306635

Many thing can cause it to fail. First it is one of the two (the other being the keyboard) most use parts of the notebook. There may be a chance that something was slightly spilled on it. It would really be hard to tell even by looking at it.

 

by: Jared_mcPosted on 2009-01-06 at 12:14:56ID: 23308633

Any more help with this or is this a hardware problem?

 

by: andrew_aj1Posted on 2009-01-06 at 12:20:02ID: 23308697

From everything you have done and told me it souds like a hardware problem. If you want to verify that this is 100% a hardware issue you can use a live Linux CD such as Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/ ). If you are able to use the touchpad in Ubuntu it is a software issue, if you are not able to use it that means it is hardware.

Just download the desktop edition and you can run the OS live off the CD without installing it.

Good luck.

 

by: tallmousePosted on 2009-08-31 at 14:40:55ID: 25226787

I tried every driver, had the same problem.  Problem started after using a usb microsoft mouse.

2 solutions.
format - Not recomended for a stupid mouse
Update Bios. Go to the dell drivers page and do a bios update.

works great again. no dell drivers needed :)

enjoy

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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