Which mouse button is sticking/broken on M6500?

Hello, 

The best way to know is disable the touchpad, which should tell you if its the touchpad left button or the keyboard left button depending on if the symptoms still occur or not.

Regards

Thank you for the suggestion.  It looks like you posted it 2 days ago but Dell's site sent me an e-mail notice about 20 minutes ago.

Tomorrow I will try disabling the touchpad and see if it makes a difference.  Meanwhile, I neglected to mention that on May 17 (May 16 in your time zone) I tried disabling the pointing stick and it didn't make any difference.  I didn't think of trying the opposite.  Of course this means disabling in the Windows driver.  I didn't see any way to disable it in the BIOS.  Both the touchpad and stick can move the cursor in the BIOS, but neither of them can click because one of them has its left button stuck clicked.

eBay sellers have two different part numbers for the palm rest + touchpad.  Another thread in this forum reports that Dell updated the palm rest because of random mouse problems (though not button problems) in the older model.  Which part number is newer?

Also, eBay sellers have two different part numbers for US keyboards, NSK-DE101 and NSK-DE201.  I assume 201 is newer, but what is the difference?  I've only seen one part number for a Japanese keyboard, NSK-DE20J.

Hi, 

Do let us know once you try the step. 

With regards to the difference in part#'s, its just the batch #. 

The touchpad can be disabled by using the either Dell quickset or Dell mobility center software or just go to control panel, mouse and keyboard properties and disable.

Regards

In the driver, touchpad motion and stick motion can be set separately, but there is only one set of settings for buttons.  If buttons are disabled then all buttons do nothing, so the rest of these tests will be with buttons enabled.

If the touchpad is enabled then the touchpad works for motion, right button brings up context menus, middle button closes a tab in Internet Explorer (I'll disable that when I'm done testing), and left button does nothing because of the breakage.  Both sets of buttons operate the same.

If the stick is enabled then the touchpad works for motion, and buttons the same as above.  Both sets of buttons operate the same.

If the touchpad and stick are both disabled then everything disappears, even the tray icon.  But I can go to Control Panel - Mouse to return things to their ordinary broken state.

A USB mouse still works properly, which is why I could do all these tests.

I experimented with a generic Synaptics driver from their site.  They have a bunch of options for multiple fingers but nothing matching Dell's jog settings, but that's irrelevant to the problem.  They have separate dialog boxes to set options for the touchpad and to set options for the stick, but the two are not fully independent.  Enabling buttons for one also enables buttons for the other, and vice-versa.

So I still can't guess which left button is stuck.

Hmm, today I got two Friendship requests from the Dell Community.  The first one was an obvious spam (someone wants to send me her photos ^_^) but the second one looks genuine.  I'll accept the second one in a few minutes.

The computer's warranty expired around 2 years ago (I think), and the eBay seller wouldn't give me the original owner's name, so I don't expect that Dell will provide free replacements.  I wish I knew which component to buy.

Thanks to DELL-Hema, I experimented by removing the keyboard, using a USB keyboard and USB mouse.

Unfortunately the symptoms persist, both in the BIOS and in Windows.  So now we know the stuck button is attached to the touchpad.

Which is easier to replace?  Not that I feel competent to do either of these, eBay sellers are offering both the touchpad unit by itself (KU024A0DD) and the entire palmrest with touchpad (P70YN).  I asked this question privately to DELL-Hema but am also asking publicly in case any other unfortunate victims might have advice.

In this PC and others I've upgraded memory, hard drives, DVD drives, keyboards, one time a CPU, one time a video cable, and one time a screen, but I've never done a touchpad.  It doesn't look easy.

Hi, 

Touchpad is definitely not an easy thing to replace. The part# P70YN is the correct one. 

I wouldn't suggest you to replace it yourself. But if you still need steps on how to do so, let us know will send you the steps.

Regards

Is there any way to replace the touchpad without removing the palm rest?

The service manual has 13 instructions to remove the palm rest, in which one instruction is to remove the display assembly, which is 16 instructions.  I don't suggest me to replace it myself either.

If there is some way to raise the palm rest on its hinges without removing it, without removing the display assembly, that would be an enormous help.

It looks like there isn't a way to replace the touchpad without removing the palm rest.

This helps:

He makes it look so easy, I should send mine to him.

University of Georgia, Gymnastics ... Yes I agree, that operation looked more like gymnastics than tech :emotion-7: