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Top Ways to Fix Laptop Touchpad Not Working

Laptops Touchpad Stops working

"The built-in Synaptic touchpad on my notebook no longer works, making Windows nearly impossible to use. Even the touchpad scrolling not working! I am so disappointed because I dont have a mouse here."

Imagine that without a mouse, touchpad or other pointing device, how can you use a Windows PC? So it is really disappointing when your touchpad suddenly stopped working without a mouse on hand.

This page covers several common fixes to resolve on-functioning touchpad.

How to Troubleshoot Touch Pad Not Working

 

Method 1. Reboot Your Laptop

The first fix should be painfully obvious - Restart your laptop. If the problem just started, this may be the easiest troubleshooter. We know, anything thats got in a mess gets the chance to start over by computer restart. The OS and the software gets to a new start with a reboot.

Method 2. Update Touchpad Driver

If you got this problem in a Windows upgrade like from Windows 7/8 to Windows 10, the most possible cause is that Windows installed an incorrect driver for your touchpad. If this is the case, dont worry! A simple touchpad driver update will fix it.

To update driver, you have 2 ways.

The 1st Way: Use 3rd party driver downloader and updater tool

Here I recommend free software DriveTheLife and take it as the example to show how to update touchpad driver automatically.

• Firstly, download the software from official site http://www.drivethelife.com/free-drivers-download-utility.html

• Then, install and launch it, an automatic driver scan will begin. This is collecting and analyzing your Windows drivers. Any drivers in question will be listed after scan.

• Next, check the notice message to see whether your touchpad driver is normal. If not, you just need to tick touchpad and click Start to download and install a correct touchpad driver.

• At last, reboot your computer to let the new driver take effect.

The 2nd Way: Download driver from manufactures website and install it manually

• Firstly, go to the manufactures website. It is either your touchpad manufactures website like Synaptic or your notebook manufacture like Asus, Dell, Lenovo, Samsung, Toshiba, Acer, HP, Sony and so on.

• Then search with "touchpad model and name + driver" inside. Note that you should download the right driver depending on your OS (Windows 7, 8 or Windows 10) with 32bit or 64bit.

• Next, download and install it manually.

• At last, restart Windows after the installation is done.

 Method 3. Change Mouse & Touchpad Settings 

 

• Navigate to the Start Menu type change mouse settings in the Search field, then press Enter.

• In the mouse Properties window, click the tab that seems to be for your touchpad (the name varies from model to model). Make sure that everything is enabled. If there are Settings buttons, make sure that everything is on.

• Select no delay and click "additional mouse options"

• In the new window for mouse options you will see ELAN tab (maybe the name of your pad is different). If you see ELAN pad disabled, enable it and deselect the option "disable when external USB point xxxxxxx"

• Click Apply and OK

 

Method 4. Repair Corrupted Operating System Files

Another possible cause for a malfunctioning touchpad is corrupted operating system files.
You have 2 ways to fix the corrupted system files.

1. Restore your computer to a restore point at a date prior to when the touchpad stopped working.

2. Perform an complete restore process of the Windows OS, that is, a clean install of Windows.  

If you are unable to resolve your laptop touchpad not working issue after trying the solutions on this page, the touchpad is likely non-functional due to a hardware problem. In this case,  you are recommend to send your laptop to a computer repair shop for further analysis, or buy a wireless/wired/bluetooth mouse to take its place.

Related Post:
Audio not working after Windows 10 update
How to fix display card not working

Available link for download

3 Ways to Update Windows Drivers for Hardware That isn’t Working Properly or Has Outdated Drivers

Hardware Working Improperly on Windows Laptop/Desktop

If your Windows hardware device is working improperly, don’t blame the innocent device itself. Before taking the hardware device to the doctor’s store, you may need to check whether the software that supports the hardware to work is all right. It is quite obvious that the software is the bridge that connects with the hardware and your computer, called driver.

An outdated, corrupted or missing driver can lead to hardware failures. So for any reason, just uninstall the drivers and reinstall it with the latest and suitable driver. How to? Generally, there are 3 ways to update your Windows drivers.

3 Ways to Update Drivers for Windows Hardware Devices

First of all, the commonly used devices on computer are video/graphics card that produces normal display, sound card, network card (both cable network and wireless network are included), motherboard. And there are many peripheral devices connecting with computer like keyboard, mouse, printer, scanner, mobile phones, card readers, digital camera, gamepad and so on. Click here for more drivers download. All the peripheral devices need proper drivers to work with computer.

Now let’s learn how to update and fix driver problems for your Windows computer.

Method 1: Use Smart Driver Update Software

The easiest and most energy-efficient way is to use an automatic driver update program tool which would detect the missing, corrupted and outdated drivers and then install the right ones with ease.

There are many such programs, maybe the most popular and well-known one is Driver Booster, right? But today I’d like to recommend a new giant rise of driver update software – DriveTheLife. It is very simple and clean to use, totally free for all Windows users. Have a try of the new choice!

DriveTheLife-Update Drivers

Method 2: Update Drivers Through Windows Update

Most drivers update can be found via Windows Update. So you can check for hardware outdated drivers from Windows Update. But not all updates are included in Windows Update and there might be some delay to inform updated drivers.

1. Press Start button, in the search box, type update, in the list of results, click Windows Update.
2. In the left pane of the new window, click Check for updates. It will inform you available updates after the check. Click the link to see detailed information about the update. Each type of update might include drivers.
3. On the Select the updates you want to install page, look for updates for your hardware devices, select the check box for each driver that you want to install, and then click OK.
4. If there are any driver updates, click Install updates. If it prompts for a computer restart, the update will take effect after the restart.  

Windows Update

Method 3: Download and Install Drivers Updates by Yourself

The last and the least recommended way is to download and update drivers by your own especially you are not knowledgeable on computer hardware and software. It is troublesome to do this, what’s worse is that if you install the wrong driver, device may not work and even lead to dead computer in the worst case.

However, if you hold a firm decision to update drivers by yourself, do as the follows:

• Check your hardware information and find the corresponding drivers from its manufacture’s website, download drivers from the driver download page.
•  If it is a ZIP file, unzip it and click the right .exe program to install (Just like installing other software).
• After the driver installed alright, restart your PC to let the new driver take effect.

Update Drivers Yourself

You can choose any of the above methods to update Windows hardware drivers as necessary.

Available link for download

How to Do a Driver Rollback Restore Driver That isnt Working to Its Previous Version

We always believe a myth that the new is the better. And it is truly a principle that the new is the improvement of the old, in most cases. However, there is exception. The best example people may want to break this myth is when they encounter problems with their computer after updating a device driver.

Note that even sometimes driver update could bring unexpected accident, it does not mean all driver update is bad and we should reject all driver update. For example, for gamers, updating GPU driver is quite important to get new features, faster speed and better experience.

Tip: In order to revert to your driver, you are always suggested to backup drivers before updating. 

Restore Driver to the Old Version

 

How to Fix Crashed Computer Resulted from a Driver Update?

If you are unlucky to suffer from crashed games, blue screens, dead computer, etc. after upgrading your driver, the easy and efficient fix is to roll back the updated drivers to the old version. To roll back drivers, you have 2 options.

Option 1: Using DriveTheLife to Reinstall Drivers to Whichever Version You Like

DriveTheLife is a free and simple tool that helps resolve driver problems, update outdated drivers, backup, restore and uninstall drivers for Windows hardware devices. After download, install and launch, it will start an automatic scan of the drivers and list the missing/corrupted ones, not backed up ones, normal ones by category.

If you just updated the driver, it may be listed in the normal list. Sometimes, DriveTheLife will also identify the updated driver that ruined your computer and prompt you to fix it. If it cant identify the driver, it is not disputable since it identifies it as the latest ones.

If the driver is in the normal list, locate it and pull the dropdown menu of version where will show all the versions including the latest and the old. Choose the version you want and click reinstall.

Reinstall Driver

If the driver is listed in the ones that need to be repaired, just fix it with the one click Repair.

Option 2: Roll Back the Driver in Device Manager

• From Start menu, search Device Manager, press Enter.

• Locate the driver that ruined your computer.

• Double click it and you will be directed to the Property box.

• Choose the Driver tab and click on "Roll Back Driver". 

Roll Back Driver

Note: If theres no previous version of the driver installed for the selected device, the Roll Back Driver button will be unavailable (grey). In this case, you can adopt option 1 to install whichever you want.

Additional Fix of the Updated Driver Problem

Another repair of this updated driver issue is to uninstall the driver then reinstall a compatible one. DriveTheLife can help remove unwanted drivers easily with one click. After that. start a Rescan of your computer, DriveTheLife will identify the missing driver and find the best-matched driver, you can install it with one click Repair. 

Available link for download