Hi,

Thank you for explaining the troubleshooting that you performed already. We can try to perform some more troubleshooting steps which should resolve the issue. Please follow below mentioned steps:-

1. Change the Sensitivity Settings for the Pointing Device from Control panel - Mouse - Device Settings - Dell Touchpad tab.

2. New computers have added gesture features to the touchpad hardware and drivers. A few of these features are two or three finger scrolling, pinch zoom, circle zoom, rotate and swiping. These new features may be the reason for the erratic cursor movement since most are turned on by default. You can disable or modify the way these features work in the touchpad driver properties.

3. Run custom diagnostics on Dell 32 Bit Diagnostics. Tap F12 as soon as you switch on your system. You will get Boot Options. Select Diagnostics and then custom diagnostic.

4. Hope you have updated the latest version of BIOS and Touchpad drivers. If not please refer to this link and follow the below mentioned steps:-

www.dell.com/.../NeedProductSelection

a. Put in the system’s Service Tag and choose the Operating System.

b. Select the BIOS and download the latest Version of BIOS.

c. Select the latest version of Touchpad driver and update it and restart your system.

Please respond with results

Thanks for all the info Deepa.  I have already tried all those options and still i get no joy.  Im on A11 BIOS (latest) and ive downloaded the Input drivers for the Synaptics touch pad from the dell website for my service tag number, but still the touchpad is the same.  Ive tried to run the diagnostics but i dont get an option for Advanced, it just runs the tests straight away with no option to go to advanced.  Once its done the memory tests it asks if i want to continue testing which will take another 30 mins i choose continue and it continues doing MATS Test?  where do i choose advanced? for the diagnostics?

Hi,

You don’t need to run the extended memory test. I would suggest you to run Dell PC checkup. It detects possible problems with a computer's configuration and performance and offer suggestions to help keep the system in optimal working order. Follow the below mentioned steps to run the test:-

1. Click Start, All Programs, Dell, Dell Support Center and Launch PC Checkup.

2. Click the PC Checkup button and then run custom test on touchpad.

In case your system does not have the Dell Support Center pre-installed, refer to this link for downloading the latest version:-

Select your region and on next page click on green tab that says “Download

Hi,

Ive ran the dell diagnostics online and it came back with no faults found, this looks like the same test but ive installed and ran it and it did the same, no faults found.  Ive set the sensitivity on the mouse properties touchpad to all the different settings, no joy.  Its not that anyway but im doing all i can.

The only way i can describe the issue is like when the CPU's are under heavy load, like the machine is doing a heavy task and has no resource to give to other things so they run very jerky and slow for a few seconds and then catch up.  But the mouse pointer is doing it all the time, moves jerky and slow, sometimes no response at all then it shoots off and then freezes for minutes at a time.  I really dont know whats wrong.  I would say the mouse pad is faulty but the fact that on a different version of BIOS (A00) it worked without an issue as it used to work before.  Problem was the keyboard did not work on that BIOS for some reason and after a reboot it went back to keyboard working and mouse not!  ARGH!!

Any other ideas anyone, or am i doomed and need a new laptop?

**UPDATE** I used  the Dell support centre app to perform test on the Dell touchpad and when that test is open the touchpad behaves much better (not perfect but better).  When i close the test i get about 5 seconds of decent response then it drops back into the hardly moving jerky state...what is going on here?

Hi,

Sorry for the late reply. Would recommend you to please check the issue again by uninstalling the Synaptic touchpad drivers from the Device Manager and restart the system. It would automatically pick the generic drivers. Please keep me posted how the touchpad is working .