Inspiron 8200 / ALPS touchpad / Customer support

Question

Having recently run up and down the support threadmill, it looks like Dell Support is slipping as well. I reported the same problems as all the other loyal Dell Inspiron users which were used to the Synaptics touchpad, and asked flat out if they were aware of the problems, if they had any fixes (updated drivers or similar) or if it had been done for cost reasons.

After quite a few email exchanges, I got a response from US Dell Support that said:

From "Monica":

"Marius, They have used ALPS touch pad instead of Synaptic touch
pad because our research team have found that ALPS touch pad
work better with Inspiron 8200, then Synaptic."

Following up in disbelief, I got the following:

From "Austin Panda":

"Marius, Before we introduce any new system to our customer it
passes through several tests. Our research team tests each and
every parts and it's functionality before introduce it. And they
have found that ALPS touch pads are better than the Synaptec.
So the ALPS touch pad suppose to perform better that the older
touch pads."

After a couple of more back and forth requests, they asked for order and customer details and figured out they could brush me off by telling me to contact support in my country (which is Norway, Europe).

The 8200 with the ALPS touchpad is the first disappointment I have had with a long series of Dell laptops. Add to this either,

* A retarted "research team" that concluded ALPS is better than Synaptics

OR

* A lying support team that will say anything to brush people off ("you must be wrong, our experts says it is better")

has saddened my whole Dell experience by now.

If somebody had simply told me what I believe is closest to the truth: "We saved a few bucks, meaning you pay less.." (except most people bying the Inspiron 8200 could spend an extra $10-$20 bucks for a decent performing touchpad), I would have stop bit..ing a lot sooner.

Oh well, I'm considering writing a nice article about the whole thing but will hold off a little while to give Dell a chance to respond with some information of value (I'm running the norwegian support threadmill now..) which might make them look a bit better than they currently do from the correspondence I have received.

Condolences to other 8200 users. My companies recently bought 5. What a bummer (if you use the touchpad that is, I do).

Marius Kjeldahl

WmBC · Answer

I like the Synaptic tochpad in my 8000. I have read a few negative posts about the Alps but not too many. The ones I remember seemed to be complaining about fewer features or they just didn't like the feel of the Alps. I had been holding off buying an 8200 until some of the little problems were resolved. I think I'll wait a little longer.

DeathRider · Answer

I've always disabled the touchpad on all my Dell laptops. The one on my i3500, since I couldn't have seperate settings between the pad and external mouse. Being lefthanded, it was a real pain (touchpad became the menu button).

I just carried it over to the i8200 (disabling the touchpad) and use the eraser when needed. Otherwise, I use an external mouse.

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i8200/1.6/(Sharp) UXGA/64MB GF4 440/256MB 1 DIMM/20GB/8xDVD/Actiontec MD56ORD, driver 3.5.32.2
Upgrades: 256MB Crucial/Truemobile 1150 miniPCI/20GB Mediabay drive.

i3500 A300GT/14.1" XGA/64MB/3GB/2xDVD
Upgrades: PII366/256MB Crucial/20GB IBM

My latest configs

My Links Page

koolhonda · Answer

The research team decided the Alps works better with the 8200 than the Synaptics? In that case, I would hate to see see how badly the Synaptic performed (must not have worked at all).

Dimension 8100, P4 1.7G, 512MB PC800, Toshiba 16X DVD-ROM, Yamaha 24/10/40X CDRW, Dual WD80GB SE (XP) HDs, 128MB Visiontek GeForce 4 ti 4400, SoundBlaster Audigy Gamer, GVC Modem, 3com intergrated Ethernet, P991 19" Trinitron, Z-560's *** Inspiron 8200, P4 1.5G, 512MB PC2100, 8X DVD-ROM, Hitachi 40GB (XP) HD, 64MB GeForce 4 440, 15" SXGA+, ADA 885's,____Firewire Networked and sharing a HP Deskjet 932C , and a HP Scanjet 4100C

SimplePCguy · Answer

Hi,

My guess: you are correct, the synaptics didn't work well. Whether the fault was with Dell or Synaptics, I can not say.

But, I've seen numerous posts complaining about flaky mouse problems. The most common "solution" has been turning off the pointing stick and/or the touchpad and using an external mouse.

In my own experience (Inspiron 8000), I had to get the keyboard assembly replaced because of a misbehaving pointing stick and keyboard. And, they've begun to fail again about 10 months later.

Alan

WmBC · Answer

I have always had really good luck with Synaptics Touchpads.

MWester · Answer

Marius,

You are completely accurate with your assessment of the ALPS touchpad vs. the Synaptics touchpad. I just "upgraded" from my 8000 to an 8200. I gave the 8000 to my wife and I was seriously thinking of taking it back and giving her the 8200. The feel of the ALPS pad with respect to moving the cursor is much worse than the Synaptics pad. I tried adjusting all the settings. I even thought maybe I could swap the hardware between the computers. (anyone tried that?) I finally figured out that if I get a large book or a notepad and use a mouse on that while I'm sitting on the sofa, I can forget about the stupid ALPS touchpad.

In summary, what a dissapointment this is. If I didn't already have a dell 8000 and was trying the touchpad out at the store I might have picked another brand. Does anyone think of these things. The 8200 is the high end machine. You don't cut corners on the high end machine, you just charge more for it.

...sighs....

Marc

dwoo · Answer

I also find the Alps touchpad is unacceptable. Synaptics is far more natural to use.

Dell must have picked Alps over Synaptics product because of the cost. If you go over to the Alps website (www.alpsusa.com), they actually not making the touchpad anymore (they actually licensed it from Cirque: http://www.cirque.com).

Kamika007z · Answer

If you have an 8100 or 8000 palmrest assembly you can swap it to put into the i8200 and WILL have a working Synaptics touchpad. The only other problem is getting the track-point to work on the keyboard, which does not. I have found that gettng the eraser-head trackpoint to work as well IS possible but very very tedious and time consuming. Will I do it? YES! I'll keep you all updated.

John

Kamika007z · Answer

Ok everyone, here's my update: I changed the touchpads. I put the i8100's Synaptics into the i8200 and the ALPS into the i8100 (it worked just fine for both). Now here's the tricky part: getting the keyboard mouse to work. The i8200 keyboards are "backwards compatible" when taking it apart. However, the i8100 keyboards are not. If you take the i8100 keyboard apart, don't hope for it to go back together. In order to get the Synaptics working on both the touchpad AND track-point (pointing stick on keyboard) you need to use an i8100 keyboard, but to do so, you have to change the adaptor that connects the keyboard to the motherboard by using an i8200 adaptor (the i8200's is off-white in color and the i8100 is black) onto the i8100 keyboard. Boot up and restore the BIOS defaults by pressing Alt+F and then save & restart. One down side to all of this is that the overall feel to the i8200's keyboard is really nice. However, I can let that go considering the ALPS is such a horrible touchpad when compared to the Synaptics. I put the i8200 keyboard into the i8100 and both ALPS touchpad and keyboard worked sucessfully as well. (swapped them)

Note: The i8000 and i8100 are, in fact is a Synaptics chipset under the track-point and the i8200 respectively an ALPS. So they must match one another in order to work. Soon I may try to get the Synaptics chipset into the i8200 keyboard, but that'll be a toughie, considering both types of trackpoints have different harnesses underneath, when screwed down.

Kamika007z wrote:

If you have an 8100 or 8000 palmrest assembly you can swap it to put into the i8200 and WILL have a working Synaptics touchpad. The only other problem is getting the track-point to work on the keyboard, which does not. I have found that gettng the eraser-head trackpoint to work as well IS possible but very very tedious and time consuming. Will I do it? YES! I'll keep you all updated.

John

Kamika007z · Answer

Sorry all, but after a long time of testing, it is little too tedious, and the parts just simply do not match 100%. Stick with the i8100 keyboard if you want a synaptics trackpoint on an i8200. That is the tradeoff.

John

Kamika007z · Answer

After EXTENSIVE research and testing with trial and error, I have found a way to integrate the i8100's synaptics trackpoint INTO the i8200's keyboard. Now I have the synaptics trackpoint AND touchpad with the i8200's keyboard all working together great. I will be posting a guide online and will update this thread on where it can be found and followed if you want to perform the modification yourselves.

Thanks all,

John

Message Edited by Kamika007z on 02-01-2005 11:18 AM

Kamika007z · Answer

Hi All, Better late than never, the guide has been up here for a while, but I never followed up on this thread, my apologies about this. Warm regards,Kamika007z

Locked Topics – Laptops General

Inspiron 8200 / ALPS touchpad / Customer support

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