Touchpad does not respond while typing

I'm having the exact same issue. Hopefully there is a driver update soon

I just got my Inspiron 15R SE 7520 today, and I had read about this problem on the reviews, but a Dell employee had answered to that problem, saying there s a quick fix on the Touchpad, just disabling "Touchguard". So that was the first thing I did when I got my laptop, but there was no option for "Touchguard" or anything similar....

Called the tech service, the very nice and oblivious guy who was trying to help me got me to disable the Touchpad, said he would use Remote Access to see if there is an option in the Touchpad application (duh, I was saying that there wasn't and that was the problem) and after a few minutes of talking to him and figuring out that he doesn't have any idea how to solve this, I hung up and decided to look for a solution online.

The thing is, I have seen some screenshots of the previous version of "Dell Touchpad" application, and that one really does have an option to turn off "Touchguard". It seems stupid why they would remove that, right? Anyways, so if we could find a way to "downgrade" our Touchpad program into that one, that could temporarily solve our problems until there is an update that solves this.

Any ideas??

yeah, i ve looked a hundred times, no "hidden items", no "touchcheck" :(

maybe if you took a screenshot? that would be so, so helpful.

I got it to work!!!

I have Dell Touch Pad loaded on this laptop.  (it came with it)  I had to disable what is called TouchCheck.

I went to :   Dell Touch Pad/ Touchpad settings /Disable (unclick Enable)  TouchCheck

It was located in the hidden items...lower right side of screen.

Yeah I agree with tulie. I think the regular inspiron and the special edition have different touchpad drivers though. Which do you have?

Just go to add/remove programs and uninstall the Dell Touchpad software.  I don't use any of its extra features it provides so there's nothing I'm missing from it, and the delay to use the touchpad right after the use of the keyboard is gone.

Please fix this serious fault. The previous poster is right, removing the software will get rid of the problem, but it makes it impossible to get rid of touch click and other annoying features and any customization. Dell have sold these laptops to us faulty and they should at least release some kind of driver or patch to their touchpad software which corrects this issue, it's turning what was otherwise a perfect laptop into something totally useless for playing games on. 

There is a similar thread where the problem has been solved

en.community.dell.com/.../19461214.aspx 

The solution deals with editing registry however. I wonder why this is not a setting in touchpad settings.

The feature IS included in the generic version of Elan's drivers, seperate from Palmcheck. Presumably  whoever designed the Dell customised version didn't appreciate the difference and just left it out. However as the Dell software is just a skin over Elan's software, the feature is still available via regedit. Presumably the next time Dell re-skins the drivers (if ever) the feature will be fixed.

Of course, then you have the opposite problem that it's very hard to type without accidentally tapping the huge trackpad with the heel of your hand. I'm going to be test-driving my own 15R over the weekend and we'll see if it proves to be a big issue.

I did some digging, and there are basically two options. The feature you need is called "TP Reject" and it's not available under the Dell version of the drivers. Your options are:

1) Install the generic Elan Smartpad drivers, which are available online. However you won't be able to use the F3 key to quickly disable the touchpad.

2) Edit the registry. You need the parameters under \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\Elantech\OtherSetting

The important ones both start DisableWhenType

_Enable: Set it to 0 to disable this feature. Set it to 1 to disable the touchpad after typing

_AllArea: Set it to 0, and the feature only appies to the edges of the touchpad. This is really useful! It gives you a compromise where the middle of the touchpad is always usable, but the edges of the touchpad are disabled briefly after typing. Set it to 1, and the DisableWhenType feature applies to the whole touchpad.

There are three more settings which start  DisableWhenType_DelayTime

_Gesture means that multi-touch gestures will be ignored for a certain period of time after typing.

_Move means that the pointer won't move for a certain period of time after typing

._Tap means that taps will be ignored for a certain period of time after typing.

You set these by changing the toggle to "Decimal" and entering an amount of time in milliseconds. 1000 means one whole second. Depending on how fast you type, a delay as short as 200ms should be sufficient. Zero means that there's no delay. These can all be set independently, so for example you might want the cursor to be able to move immediately (0) but have a short delay before taps or gestures work (250).

Note that these settings will not work until AFTER your restart your computer!

Happy tweaking.

Thanks, I really just poked around a bit with the other parameters after reading about the basic ones. I've not run into the two-buttons-at-once issue myself so I wasn't aware of it. I'll keep you posted if I have any ideas but I've never really had to use two buttons at once in the past, just because of my usage pattern. (My last laptop had GMA 945 graphics so I'm not in the habit of playing anything more sophisticated than Minecraft on a touchpad!)

Dell really went with an obscure off-brand for the 15R touchpad which seems to be part of the problem. Given that it has a Creative Labs webcam, a Seagate HDD, and Intel everything else, you'd think they could plump for a Synaptics or Alps touchpad. Elan seem to be on the way up lately so maybe the generic drivers will get better. Certainly the palmcheck feature could use improving.

That's great Sockatume, finally got my keyboard to work while using my mouse and I appreciate your assistance very much - unlike the Dell support staff, you seem to have a knowledge of computers (have spoken to about 20 who were as useless as each other). Got to play a couple of games for about an hour before I came across the next crippling feature of the Elantech touchpad - both mouse buttons won't work at once! Yes, should you choose to hold down the left mouse button, you cannot press the right one. This is essential for games like Crysis, WoW, Planetside (the most popular games of the day that most people are going to realistically be playing) and makes playing them without this feature pointless (can't aim, can't run). 

Would really appreciate if you could help me find a way to fix this, as I have spent literally hours upon hours looking through multiple different threads on various websites of people asking the same question, it's clearly a common and blatant problem. As blatant as Dell selling people these laptops with faulty touchpads that take 10s of hours of searching online to even start to find a fix for. It's basically mis selling, had Dell posted a warning on the page when the laptop was sold i.e. '8GM RAM, 1TB HD - intrinsically broken touchpad! Buy this computer if you want a touchpad that is incompatible with all the best selling games of the day!' I wouldn't have bought it, and I imagine a lot of others wouldn't have either judging by the massive list of complaints I have found about this fault on a multitude of websites.

I will drill holes in my head with a powerdrill before I ever buy anything from Dell again.

Sockatume - you are my only hope.

Well I just figured it out on my Dell N5050. The lag was driving me nuts!

I clicked my touchpad icon and clicked Touchpad settings. Then un-checked the Enable TouchCheck box.

It is freaking unbelievable that this issue has not been addressed yet by Dell.  I just bought a Dell XPS 12 laptop, and it uses an entirely different touchpad manufacturer, Cypress, but it has exactly the same issue.  I still place the blame squarely on Dell's shoulders, as they either did not fully vet their suppliers features and functionality, or they have neglected to acknowledge and fix the issue directly.

Give us a new driver already, or I can assure you I will be returning this laptop (btw, you have 1 week, or back to the store it goes).

I had a similar problem, but I found that within the TouchPad Settings, by either reducing the "TouchCheck" sensitivity or disabling it, cured my problem.