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?

"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

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

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

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