Synaptics driver not working on Inspiron 17 (5749)

My experience with Dell pad drivers is that they are not real good and not fully functional. I ALWAYS go to the Toshiba site and download the appropriate driver. These drivers are full function, not the crippled Dell drivers.

I'm the guy who firstly reported the problem in the other blog....

Following your advice I visited Toshiba Support site and tried the v 17.0.10.1 driver and v.18.0.9.0 driver. 

I also tried, before installing Synaptics drivers, to update the Intel I2C HID driver with v.603.9600.1948.28229: no luck.

I also tried to install the synaptics driver from Safe Mode directly taken from Synaptics site: no results. 

I called Dell and the technician told me to reinitialize Windows 8.1: the only results was the lost of most applications installed... the touchpad driver didn't fixed magically...

Is there any Inspiron 17 5000 (5749) user with correctly working touchpad driver? 

I don't know what to do, at this point! ANY advice is welcome about solutions or working drivers...

Saw a claim that this is an Elan touch pad. See the following for a list of drivers for all Dell pad manufacturers, including Elan..

http://dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/driver-sets/dell-touchpad-drivers/

@Kirkd: The Elan driver did not work. I falsely claimed to have installed, but never showed up in expected places. Other ideas?

@gaspgiacomo: It is good to know that you have chimed in. We can commiserate together. I too have the same question. I feel like this is an experiment in having customers figure out their problems.

Yes! So we have the same opinion :) 

Yesterday I tried to download Elan driver 13.6.1.1: the result is the same you have reported.... no trace of the touchpad...

I'm curious if you have tried to reinstall Win8.1 x64 (I only tried to recover Windows a week ago).... 

I called Dell support a week ago: yesterday I recieved a 8gb pendrive with all the SO data inside... I could try to figure out if a complete reinstall could resolve the problem but I've to save my data before trying...

I orederd my notebook on February 28th, I recieved it on March 6th: has your PC been shipped  to you around the same days?

Have a nice day.

Hope we manage to resolve the issue (I dont'give up).

gaspgiacomo.

The only thing I can suggest is to try to install all the drivers on that page. You could download all the drivers to a folder and then use the update driver function in the pad section of the Device Manager.

Does the Device Manager list the pad at all?

If so, what is the driver version and who is listed as the driver supplier.

I can't remember all the posts , as this problem is growing fast.

All I have ever done (with older laptops) is adopt the appropriate driver from the Toshiba; I tested most of them till I got what I needed. In one case, I found a "generic" Dell pad driver for Win8 listed on a page NOT associated with drivers in general. I found this by accident, and it worked.

Problem here is MS making mucho updates and not being able to determine if any are not going to be compatible with the changes. The touch pad manufacturers apparently also do not keep up with the changes; it's probably a big pain. This is similar to authors writing Metro Apps for Win 8. Every time there is a batch of OS updates, one or more of these Apps stops working, Win 8 (and 7) were supposedly written differently than older version, allowing software authors a set of links that would allow tying into the OS without using  complicated (and bad) coding. Doesn't seem to be working.

Another problem is that, as MS includes over 500,000 drivers in Win 8, many are really bare-bones, and do not include all the options usually available for a particular piece of hardware. For example, HP has a bare-bones printer in Win 8, but it basically just does printing. The full featured driver is about 250 MB. I think many device manufacturers just will not go to the trouble of supporting all the features. This is outrageous for a newer model as the XPS 13. Dell does even have a driver available, depending on the bare-bones Win 8 version. This is really bad practice. If they are going to specify a particular pad, they should insist on full featured drivers. Granted, the majority of users probably don't care, but many do care.

End of RANT!!!

In 8.1 Pro, there is native support for their "Precision Touchpad", which Dell Support finally told me after about a week of troubleshooting.  You can find this out when going into the Printers and Devices where the touchpad will be identified.  So the bottom line is that the drivers that the Dell lists on their website for my configuration were not needed, just the Intel chipset driver, which I already had installed.  I uninstalled the Dell Touchpad driver and re-installed the Intel chipset driver and problem solved for my configuration.

I also have the same issue. Have reloaded/restored/re-imaged so many times I can do it in my sleep.  Dell even sent me a usb stick to re-image the hard drive but no change.  I have a question for you though, in the taskbar is your quickset icon grayed out and non responsive as mine is?

I am about resigned to this. Thanks for the info. BTW, I got another laptop for my wife after I got this Dell. Because of this issue, I opted for another brand and we are happy with the results.

To answer about the item in the task bar: no it is not present nor is it grey.

If you have a Precision Touchpad on the Inspiron 17 5000, like I have, YOU DO NOT NEED the manually installed drivers in Windows 8.1 and you will not see the touchpad in the Control Panel.  The Precision Touchpad is native to Windows 8 and all the settings in the Windows 8 interface and not in Control Panel.  It took Dell Support about two weeks to finally give me this clue.  I cannot tell you how many times uninstalled and reinstalled the current and previous drivers.  You can uninstall the driver if you have the Precision Touchpad and it will identify it in under Change PC Settings, PC and Devices, Touchpad and Mouse.  This is the only place you can change settings for this touchpad.

mchollma:

Very interesting that they apparently knew about this, but still recommended their own drivers!!! 

The Dell XPS 13 has had a lot of pad problems, and it supposedly has the Precision pad specs.

Who knows!!

Inspiron 17 5000 5749 users: I kindly ask you if you've experienced the DVD drive problems I noticed with this notebook: see thread http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19629951.

Thank You.

Seems that I am not alone.  Had the same problem with my Dell 5749.  Very frustrating.  Spent many hours on phone to Dell Support, tried everything but still not fixed.  Very poor from Dell.  In the end I gave up and used the Windows 8.1 settings to turn off the touchpad clicks (at least this stops accidental clciking of the mouse when typing).  My Dell is also a poor performer - freezes a lot and seems very slow for a claimed i7 processor.  Certainly will not buy another Dell after this experience.

Dell suggested I send the laptop back and they'll sort it out but that wll take about 2 weeks and I have no other laptop at home so that's not practical.

If anyone got this solved by Dell, I would love to know.