Dell G3 3579 Touchpad Clicks Does Not Work.

Question

Apologies if this is the incorrect board.

I bought a Dell G3 3579 i5 8th Gen laptop brand new and the touchpad worked fine. Since clicking made a very audible sound, I mainly used the taps; however, sometime down the line when I did try the click, it was not responsive anywhere on the touchpad -- so physical left click nor right click & center or top (left clicks). Of course with a new system you windows update and driver upgrade and since I didn't use clicks often, I don't have an accurate timeline of when the problem started. I tried running driver updates through support assist, reinstalling touchpad and mouse drivers in device manager and tried installing a few touchpad drivers from online, including anything under the "Mouse, Keyboard & Input Devices" category for my device and nothing works.

Tap and navigation works as normal so I'm assuming the problem isn't with any physical cable or anything. Any solutions?

SlowburnSB · Accepted Answer

Hi, thanks for the response.

There wasn't any difficulty with clicking, it's just that clicking didn't translate to anything on screen.

Anyway, I removed the back case and checked the battery and everything looked fine; but while I had the back case removed, I tried the solution from this post here, which I didn't initially try because it was a different system and like I said before, I thought it was a driver/software issue. But that worked, I fitted the back case on without the screws, put the PC back on, and the touchpad clicks started responding as normal again. I just made sure I didn't screw on any screws too tightly and Its been running fine for several hours now & in-between boots.

I don't understand why that would have caused any problems in the first place, any insight? I' just curious.

Regards

ejn63 · Answer

Remove the base cover and check for signs of a swollen battery. The battery resides just below the touchpad, and if it swells, it will expand against the touchpad, making pressing it increasingly difficult.

If the battery cells show any sign of swelling, remove and dispose of the battery immediately - it is both a safety hazard and a physical hazard (it'll keep swelling until it destroys the system).

Flomantic · Answer

@SlowburnSB​ Almost 5 years later, but you saved me. Recently decided to fix my Old G3 15 I got back in 2018 (the keyboard was not working), and after putting it all back together, the trackpad worked- but the buttons did not. Did not occur to me to loosen the screws.Long story short- I unscrewed ALL the screws on the trackpad. Then, I put them ALL right back in, but this time as loosely as I could. Once I felt resistance, I stopped screwing and applied no pressure. Trackpad buttons work now!  Thanks again from the future!

Inspiron

Dell G3 3579 Touchpad Clicks Does Not Work.

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