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4307
March 10th, 2004 04:00
Thumb buttons sporadically functioning
Hi everyone,
I own an inspiron 4150, and it used to work pretty much flawlessly. I wanted to do a clean format because I had accumulated enough "junk" that i felt it'd just be easier to reformat the computer and reinstall only the programs i needed and the files i wanted.
I formatted the laptop using a windows xp professional cd. I deleted all the partitions, created one partition and installed windows xp on that one. After the installation was complete, i went through and updated all of the drivers. The problem which I am encountering is definately driver related as i know that I haven't a) dropped the laptop which would cause these buttons to stop funcitoning, and b) they sporadically work.
I did a search on this and found some related threads, but no one seemed to have their issues resolved. What ends up happening is that after i install the synaptecs drivers, the touchpad will work not only to move the pointer, but also to select an item. The "thumb buttons" also work as left click and right click but sometimes they stop functioning. When this occurs i have to disable them and then the touchpad will be used to select objects. However, the problem is that when the thumb buttons also stop functioning, the synaptecs touch pad won't select anything (so i'll have to go through control panal by using they keyboard, and then change the settings).
Anyway, does anyone have any solutions to this (aside from reinstalling the drivers). Or has anyone had similiar experiences. I've tried both letting windows install the drivers, and downloading the drivers from the dell website, and sometimes it works better than others.
One last thing, sometimes if i let the computer sit after the thumb buttons stop functioning, it'll sooner or later start working. Anyway, thankyou for all your help.
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DELL-BobT
3.1K Posts
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March 10th, 2004 13:00
kocheroni,
Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.
Have you found that this is related to hardware or software? If it is software related then reinstalling the touch-pad drivers should correct the issue. If the issue is hardware related, then I would recommend running the touch-pad through the Dell diagnostic test to ensure that it is functioning properly.
Reset the machine and when the Dell logo appears on the screen, press and release [F2] several times until you are in the BIOS. Press the right arrow key to go to the BOOT menu or hold [Alt] and [P] simultaneously to progress to the second page. Change the boot sequence to CD/DVD drive, Floppy drive, Internal HDD. Now press [Esc] or [F10] to save and exit the BIOS.
The following knowledge base article can help you with this:
How to run the Dell diagnostic test knowledge base article.
The program should automatically load. Choose to run the test on the questionable component(s).
kocheroni
3 Posts
0
March 11th, 2004 07:00
I appreciate the quick response. Although I have not run the diagnostic utility (as I don't have the CD with me until saturday), I am almost certain that this is not a faulty hardware problem. The reason for this belief is that it was working fine until I formatted it. I haven't dropped it, put it out in the oven, gotten it run over by a truck, etc ;)
Anyway, I continue to believe it's a driver issue even though I have uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers numerous times because sometimes the buttons still function and then freeze up. I'm going to uninstall windows and install windows 2000 and see how that works. At this point I think it's a hit or miss solution.
DELL-BobT
3.1K Posts
0
March 11th, 2004 18:00
kocheroni,
I want to let you know that you can download updated drivers, including the Dell diagnostic test, from the Downloads tab (above). You can obtain operating system updates from the Microsoft Windows update site.
kocheroni
3 Posts
0
March 14th, 2004 04:00
I'd like to say I'm sorry for doubting that it could be a hardware issue, as I just ran the hardware tests (having been able to get access to a cd), and when i ran the test, it showed that the left mouse button would fail. With this being said, I question as to what possible solutions there are, and what would be the best/cheapest course of action to take.
Since the laptop is out of warranty, if the repair for something like this would be expensive I would not really want to go through with all that hassle, however I'm curious as to what options I do have.
Thankyou once again for all your help.
Message Edited by kocheroni on 03-14-2004 12:56 AM