Hi everyone,

I own an inspiron 4150, and it used to work pretty much flawlessly.  I wanted to do a clean format because I had accumulated enough "junk" that i felt it'd just be easier to reformat the computer and reinstall only the programs i needed and the files i wanted.

I formatted the laptop using a windows xp professional cd.  I deleted all the partitions, created one partition and installed windows xp on that one.  After the installation was complete, i went through and updated all of the drivers.  The problem which I am encountering is definately driver related as i know that I haven't a) dropped the laptop which would cause these buttons to stop funcitoning, and b) they sporadically work.

I did a search on this and found some related threads, but no one seemed to have their issues resolved.  What ends up happening is that after i install the synaptecs drivers, the touchpad will work not only to move the pointer, but also to select an item.  The "thumb buttons" also work as left click and right click but sometimes they stop functioning.  When this occurs i have to disable them and then the touchpad will be used to select objects.  However, the problem is that when the thumb buttons also stop functioning, the synaptecs touch pad won't select anything (so i'll have to go through control panal by using they keyboard, and then change the settings).

Anyway, does anyone have any solutions to this (aside from reinstalling the drivers).  Or has anyone had similiar experiences.  I've tried both letting windows install the drivers, and downloading the drivers from the dell website, and sometimes it works better than others. 

 

One last thing, sometimes if i let the computer sit after the thumb buttons stop functioning, it'll sooner or later start working.  Anyway, thankyou for all your help.