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5660: Flaky Touchpad

post #1 of 19
1/26/03 at 11:27am
Thread Starter 
Well, here comes the first hardware bug - the touchpad.

The touchpad was working fine for the last 2 days, and today too - but it doesn't.

1) Tried uninstalling the touchpad drivers, then reinstalling - didn't work.

2) Right now, the Synaptics configuration insists that there are no devices present.

3) From the device manager under mice and other pointing devices, only the HID compliant mouse below is identified.

I've got a Logitech optical mouse plugged in (worked fine with the touchpad yesterday) too.

Oh bother!


Rob
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post #2 of 19
1/26/03 at 11:52am
I've heard of the sae issues (using input devices and losing the touchpad) with Win2K and SP3 that turned out to be Microsft and they say will be fixed in the next service pack release. I hadn't heard of it with XP though. Have you tried uninstalling the external mouse? Make sure you've done all your Microsoft updates.
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post #3 of 19
1/26/03 at 1:47pm
Thread Starter 
OK - I've tried doing that; removing the mouse driver/configuration software, and also the Synaptics software - and no juice yet. Tried system restoring to a prior state too earlier in the day, but the trackpad still won't work.



Rob
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post #4 of 19
1/26/03 at 6:12pm

Is this generic??

Is this a problem on all sager lappies or is it just wizards??

Has anyone else used an optical input device and lost the touchpad functionality?

I dunno - somehow we seem to focus too much on sagers troubles without giving a parallel with other brands. I want to look into Dell and see what problems they have...

If we can find a parallel then we can convince people that this is a common problem and has more to do with the OS and the idiots at microsoft than the people at Sager.
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post #5 of 19
1/26/03 at 6:53pm
I use an IBM optical with my 5660 and no problems. Both the touchpad and the mouse have always worked fine. Don't know what to tell ya.
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post #6 of 19
1/26/03 at 8:08pm
I can't really think of anything else simple that would probably get you anywhere other than a new install =(
Then you can at least prove it's software and not the hardware and go from there.
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post #7 of 19
1/26/03 at 8:45pm
Thread Starter 
Ok - now that I've shut off the machine and gone to sleep... the following day, it works now. No idea what I did (or didn't do!).

If there's any thing nearly as bad as a component that fails, it's one with temparement behavior. I'll watch the touchpad closely over the next couple of days and see if this problem surfaces again...


Rob
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post #8 of 19
1/26/03 at 9:25pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Wzierbovsky
Ok - now that I've shut off the machine and gone to sleep... the following day, it works now. No idea what I did (or didn't do!).

If there's any thing nearly as bad as a component that fails, it's one with temparement behavior. I'll watch the touchpad closely over the next couple of days and see if this problem surfaces again...


Rob
Maybe it was one of the Sager techs. They've been known to stop by in the middle of the night and work on a system while the customer sleeps... check for a quarter under your pillow they often leave if they eat anything from your fridge =)

Glad to hear and let me know how it goes.
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post #9 of 19
1/26/03 at 9:25pm
Try replacing the I8042prt.sys file with the original one off the install media. This is what fixed it for me under Win2000 SP3
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post #10 of 19
1/26/03 at 9:33pm
Thread Starter 
Well eh, now it doesn't work again.

There was an error message this time when I attempted to access the trackpad configuration:

"An exception occurred while trying to run "shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL c:\windows\system32\main.cpl,"

Oh bother!


Rob
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post #11 of 19
1/26/03 at 9:37pm
Thread Starter 
Hmm; OK, I've searched the driver CD for a bit, but couldn't find the appropriate file with this name. Which file from the trackpad directory should I be looking for?


Rob

Quote:
Originally posted by beakmyn
Try replacing the I8042prt.sys file with the original one off the install media. This is what fixed it for me under Win2000 SP3
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post #12 of 19
1/26/03 at 9:56pm
Main.cpl is for your mouse, keyboard, and printers I believe. Something is conflicting as it's trying to initiate. I would reload the OS rather than take all your time trying to troubleshoot =(. Can you think of anything else you might have that would be conflicting? It must be that mouse screwing up the touchpad.
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post #13 of 19
1/26/03 at 10:07pm
Thread Starter 
Well, I can pretty much ascertain at this juncture that it likely isn't (maybe) a hardware defect, as the touchpad seems to go on and off. You're right that it's likely a conflict of some kind with the mouse and/or keyboard, but strangely that error message only pops up occasionally, and even when the mouse is disconnected too.

Sigh; I don't use the trackpad very much anyway - only when I don't have a mouse with me, and that's only when I'm treating the 5660 as a truly portable unit, e.g. on the train - which is rarely ever.

I"ll watch it somemore and see if I can figure out any sort of discernable pattern. And say, Adam - how about setting up a knowledge base of technical issues for the Sager notebooks at some point in time?


Rob
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post #14 of 19
1/26/03 at 10:29pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Wzierbovsky
I'll watch it somemore and see if I can figure out any sort of discernable pattern. And say, Adam - how about setting up a knowledge base of technical issues for the Sager notebooks at some point in time?


Rob
Trying! The forums are documenting most technical issues so we can hopefully catch all the patterns, issues, and fixes. It would be nice to get a Sager in house tech on to knock out questions from their experience of seeing thousands of problems and patterns. Sager didn't plan on their resellers helping with tech issues... we're just breaking the law =)
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post #15 of 19
1/26/03 at 10:35pm
Thread Starter 
Well, on that, Sagerforums is doing an excellent job - that most of the tech queries are being channeled/moved to the appropriate place will certainly help (the eventual) consolidation of all those notes into a knowledge base.

As an aside, since this is related - Synaptics has a updated set of configuration software for users of trackpads. I'm not certain if these work on the 8886 (they should), but it certainly works on my 5660 - when the trackpad isn't misbehaving, that is!

Here is it - for XP users:
ftp://ftp.synaptics.com/pub/drivers/WinNT_US.zip

For other OSes:
http://www.synaptics.com/support/downloads.cfm



Rob
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post #16 of 19
1/27/03 at 1:52am
The 8886 had no trouble with having a second mouse plugged in... It's weird, though, because the error message you got seems to indicate a software problem while at the same time what would cause software to fail and not fail to work at random? Do you have the synaptics software running as a background application? Like is there an icon for it in the taskbar?
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post #17 of 19
1/27/03 at 10:43am
I don't think it's hardware. Your system is experiencing the same symptoms mine was. I8042prt.sys is a Windows driver file. You should be able to find it on the XP CD. You may need to use the extract.exe to uncompress the file.

When I talked to Sager they said that the touchpads rarely go bad, although if you persist they will issue a RMA and will either replace the motherboard or the touchpad.

There is an issue with the Control panel and different versions of the Synaptic touchpad driver. Some version would give an error to the effect the cpl is not compatible. Check Sager,Clevo, and Synaptics to see who has the newest driver and completely uinstall the old drivers and set your touchpad to a generic ps/2 mouse then re-install the drivers.
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post #18 of 19
1/27/03 at 12:27pm
Thread Starter 
OK thanks for the advice.

I've retrieved the I8042PRT.sys file and expanded it properly. However, while doing a directory search for all instances of the file currently in use, it's the same file everywhere - i.e. it doesn't seem to be different file versions in use for the above.

How about this; you've suggested that the touchpad be set as a generic ps/2 mouse. How do I go about doing this?


Rob
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post #19 of 19
1/27/03 at 2:20pm
One easy way to set the mouse to Generic PS/2 is to uninstall the touchpad drivers and software.

I think you should also be able to go into Device manager and select the touchpad and click on the Update Driver button and there should be a way to use the generic Ps/2 driver. I don't have the laptop here now so I'll update later if no-one answers with specific in the meantime.
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