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#1
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Odd touchpad behaviour
Toshiba Portégé laptop, using Synaptics TouchPad V7.4 driver.
It's normally fine after a reboot, so I don't _think_ it's the hardware at fault, though it could be - I know little of how they actually work. Sometimes, it changes dynamics - moving very fast, so it's difficult to aim it, or very slow, so I'm constantly stroking it to get it to move at all. Often, at those times, the double-tap to click becomes hard to use, though the actual buttons (switches) below the touchpad work. Sometimes, though this _may_ only be since I've been plugging in a mouse, it doesn't work at all, including the buttons not working. I haven't been able to pin down any specific action on my part that triggers the deterioration. I haven't changed any of the driver settings - at least, if I have, I'd have expected them to apply at all times, not come on at some unspecified time (I was going to say gradually, but for all I know it might be sudden; I'm mostly a keyboard person, so it's just that when I go to use the mouse cursor, I find it zoomy, sluggish, or dead). I've been plugging in a mouse, which works fine (either direct or via a hub). I did notice during one boot a popup - disappearing too soon to catch exactly, but it said something like "alternative pointing device detected - blah", and I have indeed found that rebooting with the mouse connected seems to disable the touchpad altogether immediately, so I unplug the mouse when rebooting. Any thoughts? (Touchpad haters, please do not respond [unless you can help that is!]. I like both; I find there are things that each is better for; but, having an external mouse makes a laptop less wieldy, and uses up one of the only three USB ports [hence the hub]. And, my hands have "finger memory", such that I often go to the 'pad without thinking.) -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Does my Bradshaw look big in this? |
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#2
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Odd touchpad behaviour
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message ... Toshiba Portégé laptop, using Synaptics TouchPad V7.4 driver. It's normally fine after a reboot, so I don't _think_ it's the hardware at fault, though it could be - I know little of how they actually work. Sometimes, it changes dynamics - moving very fast, so it's difficult to aim it, or very slow, so I'm constantly stroking it to get it to move at all. Often, at those times, the double-tap to click becomes hard to use, though the actual buttons (switches) below the touchpad work. Sometimes, though this _may_ only be since I've been plugging in a mouse, it doesn't work at all, including the buttons not working. I haven't been able to pin down any specific action on my part that triggers the deterioration. I haven't changed any of the driver settings - at least, if I have, I'd have expected them to apply at all times, not come on at some unspecified time (I was going to say gradually, but for all I know it might be sudden; I'm mostly a keyboard person, so it's just that when I go to use the mouse cursor, I find it zoomy, sluggish, or dead). I've been plugging in a mouse, which works fine (either direct or via a hub). I did notice during one boot a popup - disappearing too soon to catch exactly, but it said something like "alternative pointing device detected - blah", and I have indeed found that rebooting with the mouse connected seems to disable the touchpad altogether immediately, so I unplug the mouse when rebooting. Any thoughts? (Touchpad haters, please do not respond [unless you can help that is!]. I like both; I find there are things that each is better for; but, having an external mouse makes a laptop less wieldy, and uses up one of the only three USB ports [hence the hub]. And, my hands have "finger memory", such that I often go to the 'pad without thinking.) You might try uninstalling/re-installing the touchpad driver from Toshiba. I had a similar problem years ago (Gateway? Dell? I'm not sure which), that fixed it. I'd use the one from Toshiba rather than any you might find directly from Synaptics; they seem to be very generic: https://www.synaptics.com/products/touchpad-family "Synaptics' TouchPad device drivers are customized and supported by notebook manufacturers to meet specific driver requirements for their individual products. To ensure the appropriate driver for your device, always use the driver your specific notebook OEM supports. Installing a generic driver from this website may result in the loss of OEM-customized functionality and other issues. Before upgrading to Windows 10, first check with your notebook manufacturer for compatibility, then use your device's Windows update function to ensure you get the correct driver for your hardware." HTH :-) -- SC Tom |
#3
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Odd touchpad behaviour
In message , SC Tom writes:
[] You might try uninstalling/re-installing the touchpad driver from Toshiba. I had a similar problem years ago (Gateway? Dell? I'm not sure which), that fixed it. I'd use the one from Toshiba rather than any you might find directly from Synaptics; they seem to be very generic: https://www.synaptics.com/products/touchpad-family "Synaptics' TouchPad device drivers are customized and supported by notebook manufacturers to meet specific driver requirements for their individual products. To ensure the appropriate driver for your device, always use the driver your specific notebook OEM supports. [] Thanks. I've seen that before, and have generally found the generic ones work well - and also, I thought I'd downloaded all the drivers I could for it (Toshiba Portégé R700-1F5, for W7-32) from Toshiba around 2016-8-6, as I assumed they wouldn't remain there forever. However, I do seem to have missed this one: Date last modified Type Company Operating System Version Country 06/09/2010 Touch Pad Driver Synaptics Windows 7 - 32 Bit 15.0.12 World Wide not sure why, as its date of 2010 means it should have been there when I looked in 2016. I see it is still Synaptics, but it might have something product-specific in it; even if not, its version of 15.0.12 is a lot later than the 7.4 I already have, assuming that's not just a Toshiba wrapper. (Hmm, 33M for a touchpad driver ...) It said one thing had installed successfully, and another hadn't, so I was going to try again with the mouse unplugged - but as soon as I did, the touchpad's working fine. I tried the installer again - same effect (one tick one cross, touchpad working). I plugged the mouse in again, and got the popup I'd seen once before, but this time was able to see what it said - something like alternative pointing device detected, touchpad disabled. Which it indeed was. I haven't done the restart the installation asked for. I'm sure in the past I've been able to use both touchpad and mouse at once. Though not necessarily on this machine (though I _think_ I have). I'll keep you informed of developments! -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Where [other presenters] tackle the world with a box of watercolours, he takes a spanner. - David Butcher (on Guy Martin), RT 2015/1/31-2/6 |
#4
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Odd touchpad behaviour
SC Tom wrote:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in message ... Toshiba Portégé laptop, using Synaptics TouchPad V7.4 driver. It's normally fine after a reboot, so I don't _think_ it's the hardware at fault, though it could be - I know little of how they actually work. Sometimes, it changes dynamics - moving very fast, so it's difficult to aim it, or very slow, so I'm constantly stroking it to get it to move at all. Often, at those times, the double-tap to click becomes hard to use, though the actual buttons (switches) below the touchpad work. Sometimes, though this _may_ only be since I've been plugging in a mouse, it doesn't work at all, including the buttons not working. I haven't been able to pin down any specific action on my part that triggers the deterioration. I haven't changed any of the driver settings - at least, if I have, I'd have expected them to apply at all times, not come on at some unspecified time (I was going to say gradually, but for all I know it might be sudden; I'm mostly a keyboard person, so it's just that when I go to use the mouse cursor, I find it zoomy, sluggish, or dead). I've been plugging in a mouse, which works fine (either direct or via a hub). I did notice during one boot a popup - disappearing too soon to catch exactly, but it said something like "alternative pointing device detected - blah", and I have indeed found that rebooting with the mouse connected seems to disable the touchpad altogether immediately, so I unplug the mouse when rebooting. Any thoughts? (Touchpad haters, please do not respond [unless you can help that is!]. I like both; I find there are things that each is better for; but, having an external mouse makes a laptop less wieldy, and uses up one of the only three USB ports [hence the hub]. And, my hands have "finger memory", such that I often go to the 'pad without thinking.) You might try uninstalling/re-installing the touchpad driver from Toshiba. I had a similar problem years ago (Gateway? Dell? I'm not sure which), that fixed it. I'd use the one from Toshiba rather than any you might find directly from Synaptics; they seem to be very generic: https://www.synaptics.com/products/touchpad-family "Synaptics' TouchPad device drivers are customized and supported by notebook manufacturers to meet specific driver requirements for their individual products. To ensure the appropriate driver for your device, always use the driver your specific notebook OEM supports. Installing a generic driver from this website may result in the loss of OEM-customized functionality and other issues. Before upgrading to Windows 10, first check with your notebook manufacturer for compatibility, then use your device's Windows update function to ensure you get the correct driver for your hardware." HTH :-) Touchpad drivers are filter drivers. They look at a coordinate stream to implement "virtual" features. You can extract "gestures" from the stream, or implement "virtual buttons" for a rectangular subset of the active surface. On some touchpads, physical buttons exist, which is a lot easier to deal with. Consumer | Filter driver MS HID driver | Device The trouble begins, when one of those filter drivers starts binding to *any* HID device. Some of the packages have an INF with matching PNP values to make it work properly (touchpad can be RS232 or USB). But there have been others, where the driver supplier must have been out of their mind. Microsoft released one of those one day, in Windows Update. It had to be pulled. It was breaking input on computers (no keyboard). Filter drivers have an "altitude" parameter. When more than one filter driver is allowed to sit in a stack, the "altitude" parameter decides how the items will stack up. I'm not aware of any practical examples of this on end-user systems, but I did find a documentation page one day claiming that's how it works. When you prepare a filter driver, there's some registration process where you can acquire an "altitude" from Microsoft. Filter drivers include "Upperfilter" and "Lowerfilter", and care must be taken when the topic comes up. You should not delete *every* Upperfilter in sight, because again, you can break the keyboard input. When an Upperfilter needs maintenance, there's a certain ClSID associated with it. Most of the time, the CLSID people are looking for, is the one for optical drives. And the numbers are so similar for those, you can easily make one little typing mistake and delete the wrong one :-) Don't be in a rush to delete stuff... Paul |
#5
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Odd touchpad behaviour
In message , "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
writes: In message , SC Tom writes: [] You might try uninstalling/re-installing the touchpad driver from Toshiba. I had a similar problem years ago (Gateway? Dell? I'm not sure which), that fixed it. I'd use the one from Toshiba rather than [] 2016-8-6, as I assumed they wouldn't remain there forever. However, I do seem to have missed this one: Date last modified Type Company Operating System Version Country 06/09/2010 Touch Pad Driver Synaptics Windows 7 - 32 Bit 15.0.12 World Wide not sure why, as its date of 2010 means it should have been there when I looked in 2016. I see it is still Synaptics, but it might have something product-specific in it; even if not, its version of 15.0.12 is a lot later than the 7.4 I already have, assuming that's not just a Toshiba wrapper. (Hmm, 33M for a touchpad driver ...) It said one thing had installed successfully, and another hadn't, so I was going to try again with the mouse unplugged - but as soon as I did, the touchpad's working fine. I tried the installer again - same effect (one tick one cross, touchpad working). I plugged the mouse in again, and got the popup I'd seen once before, but this time was able to see what it said - something like alternative pointing device detected, touchpad disabled. Which it indeed was. I haven't done the restart the installation asked for. I'm sure in the past I've been able to use both touchpad and mouse at once. Though not necessarily on this machine (though I _think_ I have). I'll keep you informed of developments! Said it wanted a restart, so I left it until next time I was going to shut down. Have just powered up again (I shut down with the normal Windows method, not any reminder from the installer); at some point during the power-up, I got a message saying the installation had been OK, but it needed restarting _again_. I let it do so this time. Both first time and now, touchpad seems to be working OK (mouse is turned off), but then it always did for a while after a restart. Let me see ... Device Manager says it's 15.0.12.0 dated 2010-3-11 (and no yellow triangles); Mouse still shows it as Synaptics TouchPad V7.4. So it does rather look as if what's on the Toshiba website was really just a wrapper for the driver I already had (from where, I can't remember - might have been pre-installed; I bought the laptop second-hand from a refurbisher). I'll just try turning on the mouse: Ah yes, the Synaptics popup appeared telling me it had detected an alternative pointing device and had disabled the touchpad, which it has. If I turn the mouse off, the touchpad comes back to life. So I'll [leave the mouse off and] just see if it (the touchpad) develops odd behaviour after a while again. These things are sent to try us (-:! -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf Beatrix Potter was a bunny boiler. - Patricia Routledge, on "Today" 2016-1-26 |
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