HP Envy 15 touchpad woes

Shan93

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May 19, 2013
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I posted a same thread in the HP support and they just haven't responded for quite some days, so I might post it here, thinking it might be a windows issue rather than that of a hardware/manufacturer issue.

First and foremost; my laptop is a HP Envy 15-Q004TX and I am having issues with the touchpad.

Anyhow;

Ever since I got the laptop, the touch pad has been 'funny', in other words it keeps glitching, to where the cursor is no longer smooth and the gestures no longer work.

So what did I do to resolve this issue;


  • ■Bought a 500GB SSD for the laptop...expensive I know
    ■Format the windows it came with (8.1x64)
    ■Made bootable USB (as laptop has no disk drive) of 8.1x64
    ■Installed the pro version as I get it free through my university (microsoft dreamspark)
    ■Installed all drivers from the official HP website for my device, completely updated etc....

And for some reason, it seems to be worse now. Sometimes the touchpad will last maybe 20 minutes, sometimes hours, and sometimes 2 minutes. And as soon as it goes;


  • ■Cursor moves all over the place and oscilates on position
    ■When I click one place, it sometimes clicks elsewhere
    ■ALL gestures don't work.

The only way to fix it is to either restart the computer or go into the synaptics settings in the touchpad and click 'Reset device' to where the touchpad stops working for ~2 seconds and then it back to the way it should be. But usually, not for long.

As it does this, I assume it is not the hardware, as if it was, then resetting it via software should not do anything.

I have tried older HP drivers, nothing. Uninstalled, deleted and the installed the official driver numerous times. Nothing.

What should I do now? I'd like to consider myself at being good with computers, in terms of error fixing, building, troubleshooting etc...but this has me stumped!

Thanks all for reading, it's greatly app recited!
 
Solution
Here's what I would recommend doing at this point. If you have a USB mouse, connect it to the laptop now. Then, go into programs and features and remove all software related to the touchpad including Synaptics applications and any Intel touchpad drivers. Next, go into device manager located in the control panel and double click on mouse and pointing devices. In the devices listed under that category right click on your touchpad device and select Uninstall and make sure to check the box that says Uninstall drivers as well. Don't uninstall the usb mouse you are currently using. Now reboot. Go back into device manager and find the touchpad device again and right click it. Select update drivers and update automatically. Try the touchpad...
HP lists the synaptics touchpad drivers on their site as version 18 which seems bogus as even on the Synaptics website, which should be the VERY latest drivers available for any Synaptics devices, the most current driver version is 17. Here is that driver. I'd try it and see what happens. Often times the OEM adds crap to the driver packages to make it compatible with other features of their devices and it doesn't always play well with others. The Synaptics version should be a pure driver and utility package and if it doesn't correct the issue then it's either a hardware issue or related to heat inside the case.

http://drivers.synaptics.com/Synaptics_v17_0_19_C_XP32_Vista32_Win7-32_XP64_Vista64_Win7-64_Acme_Inc.zip

 

Shan93

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May 19, 2013
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Okay so I downloaded those drivers, they wouldnt install as they are not signed, so I had to install them as usigned drivers.

When I installed them, all seems to work and the mouse (so far) isnt stuffing up. However, the cursor isnt as smooth as it was with the HP drivers. In other words, it feels rather choppy. Hard to explain what it's like, with the HP drivers or any other mouse, the cursor glides nicely across the screen, with this, it seems to kind jump several pixels at a time if done slowly.

Hmm. But definately sounds like a software issue, not a hardware.

 
Here's what I would recommend doing at this point. If you have a USB mouse, connect it to the laptop now. Then, go into programs and features and remove all software related to the touchpad including Synaptics applications and any Intel touchpad drivers. Next, go into device manager located in the control panel and double click on mouse and pointing devices. In the devices listed under that category right click on your touchpad device and select Uninstall and make sure to check the box that says Uninstall drivers as well. Don't uninstall the usb mouse you are currently using. Now reboot. Go back into device manager and find the touchpad device again and right click it. Select update drivers and update automatically. Try the touchpad again and see if it's working correctly now.

If it is, great. If not, and for the other hardware components regardless of whether it is or isn't, I'd go to the following link and update all the drivers, especially the chipset drivers (All of them listed under chipset drivers) and the Nvidia and Intel HD video drivers. All of the relevant drivers for your unit should probably be installed. The generic Windows drivers will work for most hardware components, but as you can already see, they don't always work or work correctly. You can also reinstall the HP touchpad drivers as well if the previous method had not shown any improvement.
 
Solution

Shan93

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May 19, 2013
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Hi mate, sorry for the latish reply, I havent fogotten, just very busy lately with UNI.

Anyhow so I uninstalled the drivers completely, and then decided to install the HP drivers and so far, so good. Maybe by installed the previous synaptics and then the official HP ones has done something, who knows. But for the moment, fingers crossed, everything seems good. Otherwise, I might just call HP or try a clean windows install one more time.

But yeah thanks for your help. I'll keep this posted incase anything changes.
 

Shan93

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May 19, 2013
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I might as well provide an update, also incase anyone else is having issues with the laptop.

After creating a thread in the HP section and having many replies, turns out that it was indeed the software that was faulty, rather than something wrong with my laptop. Everything with the same make of laptop had the same issue, regardless of them replacing etc...

I managed to install the official Synaptics drivers as said above, to which wasnt smooth as the HP drivers but did not stuff up over a week of use. Meaning that it was the driver, as opposed the hardware.

HP are now aware of this, but has given an ETA to a fix in the realm of a few weeks to months to indefinitely. Pretty bad customer support IMO. But I have managed to speak to the store manager of the place I purchased and got a laptop that was much more out of the price-range for a tiny price difference.
 

dkkteoh

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Sep 23, 2014
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I'm having the similar problem with my recently bought HP Envy 15 touchpad too. Just like you, the touchpad isn't so responsive and there is big lag from one-touch to two-touch. Occasionally the one-touch stop being responsive. May I have the link to your HP thread?