Computer Help- Dell Touchpad (Latitude D630)

[Jonathan S.]

I keep thinking that I must be missing something obvious, but I'm usually pretty okay with this kind of stuff, plus my reasonably computer-savvy brother couldn't figure it either, so here goes:

-- I have a new Dell Latitude D630 notebook, which is a replacement for an older Latitude that was starting to get pretty outdated as well as potentially unreliable (i.e., physical memory dump incident).

-- I almost always use it hooked up to a docking station (with separate keyboard & monitor, etc), where all is well.

-- But when on the road (e.g., http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...d.php?t=100290 http://picasaweb.google.com/jshefftz/QuebecCity ), I'm always unintentionally highlighting/selecting various things, plus the cursor often jumps up a couple lines unexpectedly.

-- So, you're saying, duh, just change the touchpad settings so that clicking is not done via the touchpad. Well, the problem is that I don't seem to have any way of adjusting the touchpad!

-- I remember very well that when my friend helped (?) set up some routine stuff on my computer (transferring over files and programs, etc.), I had a touchpad icon in the bottom "tray" but I told him I didn't need to be accessing it all the time, so he took it away.

-- So now I go to the control panel. Get to this screen:




-- I choose Properties and get to this screen:




-- But when I choose Change Settings, I just get this:




Thanks in advance for any help!

[flyby]

If you have more than one part of your hand unknowingly touching the pad then the cursor will jump unexpectedly. Other than that, you're on your own.

[squirrelmurphy]

go to support.dell.com and search based on your service code (numbers and letters, my old one was 6dflf31 if you want to use that) and download the ALPS touchpad driver, looks like you don't have it installed.

[Jonathan S.]

If you have more than one part of your hand unknowingly touching the pad then the cursor will jump unexpectedly.

Ah hah, that would explain that part - thanks!

go to support.dell.com and search based on your service code (numbers and letters, my old one was 6dflf31 if you want to use that) and download the ALPS touchpad driver, looks like you don't have it installed.

I tried installing updated drivers from both the website and the resource CD that came with the notebook, and even uninstalled the current driver and then reinstalled the CD driver -- same situation as before, and when I click Update Driver I eventually receive a message that the "best" driver is already installed and that my driver software is up to date. [insert frustrated emoticon here!]

[fez]

make sure you have all the recent drivers on your laptop or on disc
hook your laptop up to the docking station or plug in a usb mouse
go to your device manager (control panel -> system -> hardware -> device manager). look for 'mice and other pointing devices'. highlight and delete the touch pad
reboot

the computer should tell you about discovering new hardware on reboot. install the drivers you want.

[toiletduck]

You need to find Dell's specific driver for it - Microsoft create their own drivers for stuff and Windows tends to give them preference on anything automated. You need to uninstall entirely then install the Dell drivers. Not sure where to find them for your model, but I've sorted this exact problem at work and it's 100% drivers.

[Son1cdeth]

Just got this laptop last week. Had to rebuild it because I didn't like our corporate build. These guys are right, you have to install the Alps trackpoint application in order to configure how the touchpad behaves.

Go here:
http://support.dell.com/support/down...&catid=&impid=

expand Mouse & Keyboards

Grab the driver and install it. You'll have a configuration utility that opens when you click on Control Panel --> Mouse

good luck...really impressed with the D630 over my old D610. Santa Rosa is nice...

[Jonathan S.]

Thanks for all the advice . . . although it still doesn't seem to be working, argh!

I've now uninstalled and reinstalled the driver (both from the Dell website and from the Dell resources CD, although it appears to be the same file) several times (along with many reboots...).

I still can't find any way to access the touchpad settings. When I mess around with some of the other options, here are the screen captures:

[Jonathan S.]

Whoops -- or rather, yay! -- it *is* working now: the change wasn't apparent when hooked up to the docking station, but when untethered, an additional tab now appears in the control panel screen, and a new icon appears in the tray. The odd part is that when docked, all the driver info, etc appears exactly the same as before, yet clearly something must be different since the touchpad controls now appear when undocked . . . although hey, if it works, I won't worry.
Thanks for all the assistance!

[RShea]

When it is docked the mouse is detected and the touchpad is basically disabled. The undocking brings the touchpad alive again and the settings (Reboot is probably required). Also the screen shots you had above are for the drivers. Under the control panel there should be some more settings under the mouse for things like the delay for a double click, sensitivity, switching the buttons for right handed or left handed, etc.