Touchpad not found :/

My wife has been using her laptop as a desktop for ages, so it's (almost) always had a mouse attached. Now she got a new one, so I inherited the old laptop for porch surfing. First thing I notice is the touchpad doesn't respond. It's Win 10.

I've googled several attempts to fix it, but it continues to resist.

Attempts to update software require going to settings and selecting "mouse and other pointing devices", but settings only shows a "mouse" category, and no other selections.

I tried "search for new devices" and got nothing.

I DLed a new touchpad driver and ran it, and it comes up "device not found."

So somehow all internal reference to the touchpad has completely disappeared from the operating system.

It's no big deal using the mouse most of the time, but it's the principle of the thing. Any ideas out there?

Have Mary 'splain it to you...

If she doesn't remember disabling it, click on the start icon (window lower left on taskbar) and type "device manager". It should find this for you, hit enter to open it. Look for devices with a red X or something to indicate a problem.

The win10 machine I'm using is dumbed down by the admin here at work, so I'm not on Dell's touchpad drivers nor can I install them, but windows provides some generic drivers that should work. If you check pointing devices you may find one is disabled. On my machine the first HID-compliant mouse looks suspiciously like a touchpad when I right click and click on properties.

After right clicking on properties (Alps makes touchpads for Dell and lots of other laptops):

If you click on the driver tab you have the option to disable (or enable if it is already disabled), or to uninstall the device.
Uninstalling the device will allow windows to detect it next time you boot and it will look for drivers to run it.


Be careful out there. Be sure to yell at the kids before they walk on your grass.

Thanks Steve. I'll take another crack at it when I get home. I didn't get that far down into the menus.
But like I said, I don't have the heading "Mouse and other pointing devices," I just have, "Mouse." Like nothing else is there!
We'll see what happens tonight.

No dice. The mouse is all that shows. Searching for new hardware turns up nothing.

I'm gonna go with dead touchpad. It's not seeing it. But try expanding all the other categories for an unknown device.

You could also try to do a really sincere power-cycle by removing the battery, and pressing the "on" button for 30 seconds or so. This should deplete any residual power left in capacitors forcing any hardware to initialize fully next time.

You might also rummage around the BIOS (basic input output system definitions) but I don't think there are any pointing devices configurable there. Each manufacturer has their own key sequence to access the bios at startup but it's usually pressing DEL or F2 when the machine boots. It will also tell you when it starts up what to press (unless it's a newer machine that's too fast and you have to use another method). This is unlikely to help but it might entertain you us.

Thanks for trying. The thing is 6 years old and dying anyway (which is why I inherited it when Mary got a new one). I'll try the cold restart and then give up.

Have you tried smashing it?

Well, no, I still want to use it for a while.

you could load it up with every computer virus ever written and sell it as an art piece for a little over a million...

Holy crap, that worked! It's back!

Thanks, Steve.

it's an old PC trick useful for any hardware that's acting up. For desktop PCs the same applies: remove the power cord and press the power button for a longish time.