"W. eWatson" wrote in message ...
On 2/19/2012 9:37 AM, SC Tom wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message
...
In message , W. eWatson
writes:
On 2/18/2012 12:34 PM, SC Tom wrote:
"W. eWatson" wrote in message
...
Often I use the pad on my laptop to move the cursor. However, I began
using the mouse more recently. I have a Gateway MX6453 laptop about 4
years old. My thumbs often accidentally hit the pad while typing, and
the cursor goes to some random place where I'm typing, brings up a new
window, or to a lot of other unintended places. How do I turn off the
pad?
[]
Ah, touchpad, not keypad. OK, I went there are no Device tabs.
Pointers, Pointer Options, Wheels, Hardware. OK, I'm on Hardware.
I've looked here before. I an HID-compliant mouse and PS/2 Compatible
Mouse under devices. No touchpad.
[]
If you see (I presume the word "see" is missing from the above!) "an
HID-compliant mouse and PS/2 Compatible Mouse", after plugging in your
mouse (you say you are using "the mouse", so I presume you are
plugging one in), then one of those probably _is_ the touchpad; after
all, for most software, it functions as a mouse. Try disabling each of
those! (I suspect it'll be the PS/2 one.) [Don't disable both - that
includes making sure the re-enabled one has started working again - if
you find it's the wrong one, unless you're familiar with how to use
the computer without a mouse; it's usually possible, but many people
these days don't know how to.]
Alternatively, and you'll kick yourself if you have something similar:
on this Samsung NC-20, Fn-F10 toggles he touchpad on and off ... (-:
I wish mine had that, or like my old Compaq had, an on/off pushbutton
right above the touchpad.
According to the manual for the OP's laptop, there IS a Fn toggle for
the touchpad (I missed that earlier). It shows a finger touching a
rectangular box with a "not" circle on it. Unfortunately, it doesn't
show a picture of the keyboard clear enough to tell which key it is. It
seems to be between the "Screen Blank" and "Play" F-keys, but doesn't
state definitively which ones they are; it just shows the icons to look
for.
I wish I had my Gateway manuals with me. In any case, I tried every blue F-key and otherwise, and found nothing to
indicate the pad was disabled. It did rattle me a little when f3 turned the screen black. I had to press the power
button to get on. Then I got a little rattled again when I started to get numbers instead of letters when I tried
typing a response here. The Scroll blue key is actually numlock. My wife noticed that. F4 sort of look like the right
key. It has a rectangle with an ellipse in it, slash, then just a rectangle. It didn't help.
Maybe I can find the manual on Gateway's site.
Here's the link to your stuff:
http://support.gateway.com/us/en/pro...1&modelId=3143
Go to the User Guides tab. Get the ones you want. In typical Gateway support fashion, all the zip files are the same
name, so change the name as you download, or unzip them one at a time, then overwrite the first zip on the next
download.
I'm sorry I misled you on the Fn key to disable the touchpad; I was helping someone else with their NV laptop, and that
was the manual I was looking at, not yours.
To answer your other question about the driver installation, you really don't have a full driver installed, or the
touchpad would show in Control Panel, whether under the Mouse item or Synaptics itself. You're basically running the
generic Windows 7 touchpad driver, which is probably why it's not showing up anywhere. By installing the Gateway driver,
you'll have the option to enable/disable it, adjust the sensitivity, scroll speed, etc., just like you can with a real
mouse.
--
SC Tom