Latitude 7424 -- Erratic Touchpad

Question

Hey all, just received this laptop yesterday, and it's working great! One problem that I can not seem to fix is this Touchpad manages to be both too sensitive and too slow simultaneously. Scrolling using the two finger gesture is intermittently resistent to my touch. It doesn't happen a lot, but when it does, oooh boy does it resist moving my mouse icon to a specific cluster of pixels. In addition, the mouse icon takes a bit of work to move from one end of the screen to the other (not a lot), and in the process, the mouse icon will randomly jump to the side in any direction when I'm trying to click something small on my screen. And scrolling with the gesture, going back to that, it seems resistent to start scrolling, and a little too fast at it when it finally does.

Things I've Done To Troubleshoot: (Regarding the erratic jumping around, not the scrolling)
1) I've read the manual for starters, and seen the two steps it offers for fixing/diagnosing an erratic Touch-Pad.

2) I've tried lowering the sensitivity setting, and raising it to High, and I don't like the icon being at slow sensitivity, but no setting seems to stop the touchpad from randomly jumping around intermittently.

3) I've updated my Drivers up to the latest versions, which I assume includes the Touch-Pad driver, considering the Dell utility doesn't seem to detect one for it anymore, if it did in the first place.

4) The Laptop manual states to attempt pressing semi-firmly on the case where encompassing the Touch-Pad. If pressing on the case near it on any side causes the mouse cursor to move on its own, then it's a Hardware fault of some kind, and needs to be replaced.
4--B) The above was tested and did not appear to be the case. So, my drivers are up to date, and hte Touchpad does not need to be replaced afaik.

5) Finally, the crux of this post. A video regarding this issue on the latitude 7440 states that Gesture settings can cause some degree of instability in how the Touchpad operates. I can not find any settings, in Windows 10 Pro x64, pertaining to enabling/disabling special Gestures for hte Touchpad.

Could someone tell me where I can disable Gestures for this particular model, and if you have any other ideas for making my Touch-Pad function stability when trying to select things and scrolling around, I'd be open to suggestions therein as well. :)

69Spadina · Accepted Answer

I purchased a Latitude 5500 in December 2019 and from day 1 the touchpad has been erratic. I've adjusted all the settings, I downloaded the Dell Support Assistant and made sure all my drives were updated, and regardless, the touchpad will just freeze leaving the curson in place while I move my finger around. Sometimes changing fingers helps, sometimes I have to change to a third finger, then the touchpad registers again and starts moving the cursor. It's very frustrating because I must almost exclusively use a mouse because the touch pad is so erratic. I also noticed from day one that there seemed to be a granular dust or remnant of dust on my touchpad that I still feel from time to time four months later. I purchased a Latitude 5500 because I have a 5580 for work that I love, but the performance of the 5500 touchpad is nowhere near the 5580. Is this a new Dell model issue or do I have a lemon?

JOcean · Answer

I am not sure if you tried this but in search type touchpad and the settings windows should come up. Click on that and in there you have a variety of settings that can be adjusted.

adrowlette · Answer

We have over 120 Rugged 7424's. Here in Georgia it gets really hot for 6 months. We have seen almost all of the touchpads freeze and stop working in the vehicle when the temperature is over 80 degrees. The only fix is to reboot the computer and then try to blow cold on this supposedly "rugged" machine.

The other fix provided by Dell EMC tech support is:

If you are not able to get to the computer remotely then have the user shutdown the computer and power back online. This will correct the issue with the touchpad for a period of time only.

To resolve the issue do the following:

Run sfc /scannow from command line as administrator

Do not reboot
Run in tandem Dell Command Update as administrator

Click Gear
Click Advanced
Select Advanced Driver Restore
Enable the feature
Select download driver library from Dell Support Site
Click Ok
Click Check
The process will download and install approx. 20 drivers and then require a reboot. At this time, additional updates are optional and not needed following reboot. The process will take approx. 20 minutes to download, uninstall, and re-install the Dell driver pack from known good.

THIS DOES NOT WORK! Dell needs to address this issue.

I am almost wishing we had bought Panasonic Toughbooks.

Mikhail Gorbachev · Answer

We've purchased ~24 of these over the last year or so .. same issue. Florida. Exposure to Direct sunlight after a short period of time takes out the touchpad. Field staff are using canned air, cold AC in the cab of trucks, and umbrella's over the units when taking measurements to prevent issue.

Also the fact that these units are painted black (absorbing heat/sunlight) is under question.

GaryDW · Answer

@69Spadina​ I just got a 'refurbished' Latitude 7420 for this new year, 2025. I've installed all the newest, updated drivers for the unit and as far as I have found, there is no acceptable solution for this problem with NEARLY ALL DELL LAPTOP TOUCHPADS. There are many problems associated with them. Dell should have gone with Synaptics Touchpads in all their systems. The most common problems are erratic cursor movement or none at all, and the sensitivity for clicking and gestures is way too high, even at the lowest setting. The only work-around I have found is to uninstall Dell's dedicated driver, and allow the touchpad to run using the Microsoft default HID mouse driver, which the laptop will find automatically. Wishing all Dell owners the best of luck for 2025!

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Latitude 7424 -- Erratic Touchpad

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