Question Problem with a crazy touchpad

[crchisholm]

I have a 7yo Dell Studio Laptop that still works relatively well. It is configured pretty well, but recently I tried to make some changes that kind of backfired on me.

I had the touch pad turned off for several years because it was difficult to type without touching the pad and getting a bit spastic. Now my working environment has changed and the pad would be usefull. I searched around and found a way to turn it back on. Unfortunately, something is wrong and now the mouse goes crazy and it's almost as if a bunch of keys are being pressed very rapidly (close window, open window, etc).

I want to turn the pad back off for now, but because the screen goes so crazy, I can't get back into the systems settings, device manager, or almost anything else including shut down or restart. I have to hld the power button for several seconds to do a hard shutdown.

Any ideas what I can do to turn this pad off since I can't seem to do anything through the start menu any more? I also tried to open up the laptop to see if I could see anything like dust that might be causing the problem (it was used in a very dusty environment), but what I fould on Youtube seems to be related to a newer laptop and I can't get the top cover off (afraid to pry to hard) after removing the screws in the back.

Zonked at every turn.

Charlie

 

[Grobe]

Normally on laptops, there are extra function keys on the keyboard and one of those use to be for toggling the touchpad on/off. On my Acer, i looks like a finger pointing in a rectangle. It may be different on your.

 

[crchisholm]

That would be great, but there does not seem to be a key like that. I understand the function of all the Icans I can see and doesn't seem to be there. I after about 4 hours of trying I finally got into Device Manager and as soon as I touched the mouse, it went away and a long list of random programs tried to start.

I can't believe that I am going to have to scrap a good computer because I can't figure out what to do with it. Talked to Geek Squad and they said they didn't think they can help me with it. I'm sure there are people on this board that are pretty knowledgeable, so I will give it a day or two before throwing the laptop in the surplus pile.