XPS 15-9575 2-in-1, touchpad freezing

Update:

(I have the "lower half" problem, Ubuntu at 19.10 now)

After my previous post (prev. page) I contacted German support around the start of April. The agent was accommodating regarding my use of Ubuntu, so thanks for this. They asked me to install different BIOS versions both for this problem and the another one with the fans immediately starting in tent mode (different thread - this is ok with BIOS 1.1.7 and started with the next update).

As usual, the trackpad problem was highly erratic, not happening for days sometimes, then again several times within minutes or hours. Eventually, I reproduced it in the BIOS with BIOS versions back to 1.1.1.The agent offered to send a technician to replace the touchpad. However this hit an unexpected obstacle:

The whole support experience had suffered from the circumstance that their ticket system would close the ticket if I did not reply within 3 days to any message of theirs, according to the agent, so I had do send a ping email regularly. With the many tests and the erratic behavior, my holiday trip arrived before the technician could be dispatched. The agent assured me that he could archive the ticket until I am back, and I should ping him when I have time.

Back from the holidays, I sent an reply email to this last message, without reply - twice. I suppose the ticket is closed for good and nobody is seeing them anymore.

Coincidentally, after I had taken the laptop on the holiday trip, the problem seemed to have stopped - I had no reproduction between beginning of May and close to mid of July. I could only guess that carrying the laptop around more than usual (I typically only use it at home) somehow must have shaken a connector into place or whatever. Therefore I did not pursue a reopening of my ticket.

Well and then 3 days ago it happened again, and 2 or 3 times more since then. Though each time it was short, just a few seconds, without repeating within the next hours.

In some instances I need to use 2 fingers more in the lower half, i.e., 3 to get one detected

Reporter here.

It was definitely a hardware issue, which was resolved by replacing the palmrest (including the trackpad and keyboard). The issue with the mouse happened only once; I suspect it could have been caused by the trackpad sending garbage data at the same time.

After the replacement, the trackpad worked perfectly for 3 months, but today the problem happened again

The number of issues on this model is extremely disappointing. My laptop has been serviced 3-4 times already, and it has even been replaced by a new (or refurbished ?) laptop once. Dell's support has always been very helpful, but new issues just keep appearing... In particular, I have had the screen replaced three times already, and all screens so far have presented defects (the current one has thousands of stuck pixels). I have never seen that on any other laptop.

This is unfortunate, because this machine is otherwise very productive. In any case, I would now strongly recommend against buying any Dell laptop without their extended warranty (or at all...), until they have fixed their QA issues.

Last post on this from me, I guess. Reminder, I have (had) lower-half issue, see posts above.

After my last posts on 07-13-2019 about the failed support attempt and subsequent magical disappearance of issue, I have had the issue only once or twice since, for just a few seconds each. This was all the time on Ubuntu 19.04. Today I updated to the development version of 19.10, and though this means nothing I haven't had in the few hours on that version either.

The whole thing beats me, but I accept that it is gone at least as far as it matters. Thanks to everyone for the helpful information.

So I finally have a workaround(not great though) on linux

Problem:  My touchpad randomly freezes while in use(wont click or move), then starts working about after a bit or when i open and close the laptop.

Solution:

On fedora if i go to mouse settings and disable tap to click.

Then in gnome tweak tool i go to the mouse settings and disable "disable while typing" 

When I do both of those things the issue is gone.  Takes a bit to get used to having to actually click the mouse button on my touchpad again but works.  I'm guessing there is a hardware or driver bug where enabling and disabling the touchpad over and over causes it to fail to enable  once and awhile. 

Tim

I don't think that's the fix for everyone. My touch pad was freezing, and is now completely nonfunctional in windows, but in Ubuntu it works just fine. It also works, all be it in a crippled way (no 2 finger scroll) if I disable the "HID-compliant touch pad" in device manager under the "Human Interface Devices" tab. It's possible that this is still related to hardware failure, and I'll be trying your method as soon as I can.

Respect to HQ216493 from Dell forums here, he gave a solution and at least it's been couple of hours as it works, which is much longer than any other solution Anyway, as he said, try disabling 3 and 4 fingers gesturs as well as pinch-to-zoom gesture in windows touchpad settings. Things should get better, that's for sure.

upd. damn, the next day it all started again 

To resolve the problem try downloading the newest driver from intel using their Intel-Driver-and-Support-Assistant get the installer from intels website. https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/28425/Intel-Driver-Support-Assistant - you get a new Radeon RX Vega M Graphics version number 24.20.11001.8003. After you restart windows go to touchpad settings and change your touchpad sensitivty to HIGH and increase the cursor speed to 6. This will improve the touchpads use on a 4K screen. The intel driver support assisatant is excellent. The video driver from dell does not appear to support windows 1909 (im not sure if this is the problem because I let my Dell XPS update windows imediatlley out of the box)

interesting. few months back my intel support assistant offered me 25.20.15002.58 vega m drivers, which seem to be newer. still having freezing issues no matter what I do change in touchpad settings

Try setting the trackpad sensitivity to low, that seems to have sorted it for me

I'm on archlinux, this has been driving me insane. So many guesses and so many fixes that never worked! The bottom half of touchpad just decides to stop responding for a few seconds or a minute tops! And sometimes just lags and stutters it's unbearable!

For windows users, it seemed a solution that worked with many people was to remove "HID compliant device" from their pen device options in device manager. For other window users, removing all "HID compliant" devices from their device managers.

But what about linux users? First, I tried to search what drivers I had

xinput --list

I noticed some wacom pen and finger drivers. I then added a conf to prevent libinput from handling them... that didn't work. I wondered if just loading the drivers was the problem... The driver loaded was wacom, so I blacklisted wacom (create file /etc/modprobe.d/nowacom.conf), inside it, put the following

blacklist wacom

Save and reboot. Problem gone! And as a perk, it seems archlinux loaded other drivers so screen touch is still working and maybe pen might still be working. I never used screen touch or pen, so I can't tell what I might have lost by abandoning wacom drivers, but I can finally use my touchpad without going insane I don't know about other distros, but I presume it's the same. Please report back if this worked for you.

Dear gm0n3y,

I carefully did what you suggest at step 4 and … it works!

From 3 days the touchpad has no problems. This make my XPS like a new computer because I can work without interruptions now.

Thanks a lot!

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Mario

Awesome Mario. Glad it worked for you. I'm still going strong on the reseat solution with not a single freeze up. Crazy frustrating to have such a nice laptop with a flakey trackpad. Hope the solution holds for you as well.