How to disable the rackpad and stick on inspiron 8000

Question

Howdy folks...Currently have an older inspiron 8000, and recently I have had problems with the cursor floating...even though I use external mouse it floats drastically down to the left hand corner. it takes quite a bit of pressure on the trackstick (eraser head?) to keep it inline, adn this two-handed method of mousing is gettgin tiresome :) On occasion i get a 'key stuck' error on boot, and i assume the keyboard could use a cleaning, but in the meantime how do i disable both the trackpad and eraser head/trackstick thingy? keep in mind that due to many os installs (re-formats) i dont believe i have any drivers installed for the trackpad. do i need to install drivers, or is it done fom BIOS? thx for your tiem :) Malachi

WhoGotDaJuice · Answer

Hi,     If you look in your Device manager, you wil see the Trackpad & stick(it should be one or two entries) in the Mouse & other pointing devices area.   Just right click on it, go into it's properties & disable it there.   If you did have the drivers & software installed, you would be able to disable it using one of the Hotkey or  Fn + 'somekey'    this(key) should also be described online at Dell support for your model     dagra

WhoGotDaJuice · Answer

You can go into Device Manager>Mouse & other pointing devices>synaptics touchpad>properties> Disable  and   Device Manager>Mouse & other pointing devices>Alps pointing stick>properties>disable   Here are the links for the software, whihc would let you enable & disable with a Fn key   For touchpad:    Hi,   For Alps Stick:       dagra Message Edited by WhoGotDaJuice on 01-06-200706:05 PM

Bay Wolf · Answer

WhoGotDaJuice wrote:

You can go into Device Manager>Mouse & other pointing devices>synaptics touchpad>properties>

Disable

and

Device Manager>Mouse & other pointing devices>Alps pointing stick>properties>disable

Here are the links for the software, whihc would let you enable & disable with a Fn key

For touchpad:

"deleted link" - The synaptic drive handles both the touchpad and the pointing stick on an I8000.

For Alps Stick:

Deleted Link - Do not install the Alps Stick Software - The I8000 does not use this.

dagra

Message Edited by WhoGotDaJuice on 01-06-200706:05 PM

The floating cursor problem is a known issue with the I8x00 series notebook. Disable the track stick will eliminate the floating cursor issue.

It is in your mouse properties.

WhoGotDaJuice · Answer

Thanks, for clearing tht up...I'm not sure why that Alps driver was listed, for the 8000 where I found it, but after looking at the Dell downloads section for the 8000, I see it isn't listed.   dagra

elyxthaxzus · Answer

Ya thx for the info guys...It was a little ironic that I didn't have the drivers installed, so the options for the trackpad nd stick weren't available...I actually had to install the drivers to disable the stick :) lol

worked like a charm tho thx fo rthe responses

malachi

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