In the user manual is no reference to any hotkey or switch to toggle the touchpad. When I disconnect the mouse the cursor simply disappears in WIndows as it usually does when there is no pointing device present.Įven in the Dell Diagnostic Tool (or a Linux Live Distro) the touchpad does not move the mouse cursor so I believe the issue is not related to Windows.
No touchpad driver is offered on the Inspisupport page and my search for a driver using the hardware ID (DLL8042) was to no avail. After a Windows installation the touchpad is usually listed as a generic "P/S2 Compatible Mouse" until the Dell driver is installed but even this device only shows up when I enable "Show hidden devices". But as I said, the Dell Touchpad is not present in the Windows Device Manager and therefore it doesn't show in the Windows Advanced Mouse & Touchpad options. I've been trying all this as it is suggested in the Dell Touchpad Troubleshooting Guide. As I said, no touchpad driver is offered on the support website and searching a driver by the hardware ID did not yield any results. I did load the optimized BIOS default settings, I've read the DELL Touchpad Troubleshooting Guide but obviously there is no option In Windows 10 Settings to toggle the touchpad since the DELL Pointing Device isn't listed in the Advanced Options. Is it possible that connecting a USB mouse has disabled the internal pointing device? But for the life of me I can't find any switch/Fn key combo or BIOS option to toggle the touchpad on/off. To make a long story short, I doubt the issue is related to Windows in any way because the touchpad now is not even available in the Dell Diagnostic tool or any Linux Live distro I have tried. The touchpad isn't listed in the device manager (usually a generic P/S2 mouse until the driver is installed), only when I enable "show hidden devices" it shows up, with the dreaded "yellow triangle" (Hardware ID ACPI\VEN_DLL&DEV_0843).
And this is where the trouble started, the touchpad wasn't working during Windows setup so I thought, "Well, just connect a mouse and install the input driver later." All went just fine and all drivers were installed (mind you, there doesn't seem to be a touchpad driver available at all for this model, only Intel HID Event Filter).
I then decided to install Windows 10 instead. The story so far: laptop came with Ubuntu and the touchpad was working initially. I just got this laptop and the touchpad seems to be disabled.