Question Alps Touchpad on Sony Vaio VPC F13 serties laptop - weird

[Bellzemos]

Hi!

So I have this older VAIO laptop which still works nice but I have a problem with it's touchpad, had it from the beginning. More of a mystery than a problem really.

I like having the touchpad on a laptop disabled when I plug in a mouse. So when I fist got it I run an utility called (if I remember correctly) Vaio Control Center where I disabled the Alps touchpad that's in the laptop. I plugged in the mouse and always used the mouse.

In the years I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 on that laptop and got rid of the Vaio Control Center software. But without it I am unable to get the Touchpad into the default state - ENABLED.

I even removed the old drive and inserted a brand new HDD into the laptop (it's the only disk, laptop only has one disk) and installed Windows anew. I installed the touchpad driver, the right one. But the Touchpad stays disabled tough. How is that possible?

I even run live Linux from a USB - and the Touchpad is still disabled. Only mouse works.

So. What does that mean? That that Vaio Control Center software saves it's setting regarding disabling/enabling the Touchpad not onto the disk drive but into the firmware of the Alps touchpad itself? Laptop's BIOS only has a few options and none regarding mouse/touchpad or anything of the like.

I could probably solve the problem by reinstalling Windows 7, finding the Vaio Control Center software, installing it and enabling the touchpad. But I'm more interested in knowing how is that possible and how does it work - where is the setting saved? 🤔

 

[SchizTech]

How does the driver appear in Device Manager?

 

[Bellzemos]

Note: after installing the Alps touchpad driver for VAIO (it says it's for Windows 7 but it installed in Windows 10 too) I was able to use the touchpad for like 2 seconds when the Windows desktop was loading after the reboot (driver asked for reboot after install). Then it was disabled again and after another reboot it was disabled even when loading desktop. I downloaded Vaio Control Center software too but it won't install on Windows 10.

To answer your question - like this:

 

[SchizTech]

Is there a keyboard button to enable or disable the touchpad?

Also, since this happens even in a linux live CD session, reset the BIOS. There should be an option in there to restore default settings, so look for that.

 

[Bellzemos]

No, there is not. I've tried what I've found on Google for some other Vaio models (Fn+F1) and it doesn't do anything.

I've restored BIOS to defaults already, it does not help.

I'm suspecting that there must be something in that Vaio Control Center software which "writes" this setting into the firmware of the Alps touchpad, I can't explain it otherwise. I find it fascinting. I'd love for someone who knows how this works to explain it to me.

I suspect that the only way to enable the touchpad again is to install Windows 7 OS on it and then the Vaio Control Center and enable the touchpad through it.

But I'm more interested in knowing hot does it work, I've always tought that settings like that get saved in Windows (on the disk drive) or in BIOS (like with the Lenovo Thinkad models). But here it seems it's somewhere else...

 

[Bellzemos]

Where could I get info on how this works? Anyone, please?

 

[Bellzemos]

Hello again, I've used my very old laptop after a long time again (all still works - except for the touchpad 😀) and am hoping, again, to get the answer to this mystery. Why is the touchpad not working (please read the other posts in the thread first)? Any idea at all?