New Inspiron 14Z Trackpad Freezes. Please Please Help.

[RoscoPColeTrain]

I have the new Inspiron N411z (14z with standard, non ULV CPU).


The trackpad will sometimes only allow up and down movement. Sometimes it snaps right back into form, and other times it lasts for minutes. I know what a call to dell is going to entail, so I am trying to avoid if possible.

I've re-installed the driver and tinkered with the mouse settings to no avail.

I would so very much appreciate some help here. I really don't wont to have to return this computer and start shopping all over again from scratch.


Thank you in advance.


Edit: Also, when it gets stuck in up and down only mode, sometimes it will move up and down on its own.

 

[Zero82z]

Does the laptop use a Synaptic touchpad? If so, try downloading Synaptic's own driver package and installing that.

 

[steinerd]

I am having a similar problem. Here is a video I posted documenting some of the problems I've been having:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI9mC8c9EJk

I'm surprised I haven't seen more on-line about this problem (this is the only forum I could find), because my experience with the 14z so far is that the touchpads are junk. As I describe in the video, they replaced my touch-pad the firs time this problem popped up. After posting the video they replaced the motherboard for me and touchpad again. So now I'm on touchpad #3. And guess what... the problem is back! It seems like it works most of the time, but occasionally will come back on. It works most of the time, so it's hard to know what to do, other then never recommend this model to anybody.

A tip: hitting Fn+F3 to disable track-pad, and then turning it back on will sometimes unfreeze the pad which might suggest software, but because this happens in different OS, using different drivers, I'm still convinced it is a flakey touchpad design.

 

[Marqo09]

Can vouch for the same thing. We've had the touchpad replaced twice and it just went out again. Have had great experiences with Dell in the past but I can't recommend the 14z.