[dont]

(Win XP Home)

I can't quite put my finger on it :lol: but my touchpad sometimes feels sluggish and imprecise. The scrolling areas in particular sometimes pick up a scroll action and other times do not. I have found that by pressing harder in the scroll areas it does seem to register a scroll action more often.

Another thing is that I find I need to have the cursor speed on maximum to make it tolerable, but every time I reboot the speed is reset to a slow state.

I am wondering about replacing the touchpad drivers with Synaptics drivers but when I try to install the Synaptics driver it says that the Dell driver is newer and that I must uninstall that driver first, so I am hesitating about doing this.

Questions:

Do other folks find the same behaviour with their touchpads?

Has anyone uninstalled the Dell driver and installed the Synaptics driver? If so, any conclusions?

[dont]

I installed the latest Synaptics generic driver for the touchpad and, after a couple of hours use, I find it much better than the Dell driver. The touchpad seems much more responsive and the Synaptics driver has extra features that I like.

If you do want to install Synatics driver then yout first have to remove (using the control panel) the Dell stuff and re-boot. I was afraid that removing the Dell touchpad software would leave me with no touchpad at all, but the basic functionality still worked.

Previously, I kept reaching for a mouse but now I can get by quite nicely with just the touch pad.

I get the impression that the Dell driver is a branded version of a much earlier Synaptic driver - I wonder if the same is true of the webcam as the Dell software for that device sucks.

[MarkS]

Would you be kind enough to post a link to the driver that you suggest. I similarly find the touchpad less than responsive on occassion. Thanks.

[strider_mt2k]

Also interested!

For the record my touchpad works fine, it's extra functionality I'm interested in.
My Inspiron B130's touchpad has some great features that I'd love to see on the Mini 9.

[dont]

http://www.synaptics.com/support/drivers

You lose both button click functionality, but gain the ability to assign functions to the touchpad corners and much finer control of movement. I assigned middle button click to one of the corners which gets around the only use of double button clicks that I use (open Firefox link in a new tab).

Once you have installed it then you have to go to Settings under Device Settings in the new touchpad control panel.

Note that you cannot roll this driver back if you don't like it, you would have to re-install from the CD.

Reading the Syntaptics material I now realise that touchpad scrolling is tap and drag whereas I was trying to just drag with my finger without tapping first.

[dont]

Another thing I have found is that occasionally scrolling does not respond and tapping the middle of the touchpad also does not respond although mouse tracking still works. However, a single click on the left (real) button seems to put things right.

This is using the Synaptics drivers, I suspect that the Dell drivers were the same but I can't verify that now.

The touchpad software seems to get a bit confused from time to time.

[medicThree]

Originally Posted by strider_mt2k

Also interested!

For the record my touchpad works fine, it's extra functionality I'm interested in.
My Inspiron B130's touchpad has some great features that I'd love to see on the Mini 9.

I agree. Has anyone confirmed that there are any additional features to this driver?

[strider_mt2k]

Originally Posted by dont

http://www.synaptics.com/support/drivers

You lose both button click functionality, but gain the ability to assign functions to the touchpad corners and much finer control of movement. I assigned middle button click to one of the corners which gets around the only use of double button clicks that I use (open Firefox link in a new tab).

Once you have installed it then you have to go to Settings under Device Settings in the new touchpad control panel.

Note that you cannot roll this driver back if you don't like it, you would have to re-install from the CD.

Reading the Syntaptics material I now realise that touchpad scrolling is tap and drag whereas I was trying to just drag with my finger without tapping first.

OUTSTANDING! Talk about lemons into lemonade! Great find! :ugeek:

I just finished trying this out and the touchpad driver works perfectly!
Even integrates with the Logitech Setpoint software I'm using with my VX Nano just like the other driver did.
I never used the dual button click so I don't miss it!

Before installing it I removed the Dell software and restarted my machine.
My config:
Top Left: Back
Top Right: Forward
Bottom Left: Double Click
Bottom Right: Refresh
Horizontal and Vertical scrolling still perfect.

I cannot understand why Dell would not include THIS driver, considering the Mini 9 is a surfing device and the additional functionality can help alleviate the need for a mouse!

I don't think I'm going out on a limb to call this a must-have.
Every little thing that enhances this thing's usability just makes a good thing better.

EDIT
I've gone ahead and updated my B130's touchpad with this also with no problems.

[MarkS]

Sorry for the dumb question, but could you please explain what it means to

Originally Posted by dont

lose both button click functionality

. I am not sure what

Originally Posted by dont

both button click functionality

is???

When I try to open a new link in a new tab in Firefox, I right click the bar and open a new tab. Am I doing this the "slow way." Is there some other advantage of this

Originally Posted by dont

both button click functionality

in Firefox and other software.

Thanks.

[dont]

"Both button click"

In Firefox, if you have a wheel mouse then clicking down on the wheel (a middle button click) while hovering over a link will open that link in a new tab. This is very handy when going through a list of search results: you can keep the search results in one tab and look at individual pages in other tabs - all with one click.

The Dell version of the touchpad driver maps clicking both touchpad buttons together onto this middle button click. You lose this with the Synaptic driver, but it is easy to make one of the new corner hot spots work as a middle button click.