Synaptics Touchpad - Fake Wheel...get it to really work?

Hi, as you can see in my sig, I have one of these lovely (and oh so sturdy...not) Acer laptops.

The question I pose to you guys today is can you really get your money's worth out of that stupid scroll zone on the Synaptics touchpad in Windows? I know it can be mapped in *NIX, but most of the applications I use on a daily basis are not yet ported, so that's a no-can-do for now.

What I really hate is how the Synaptics driver maps the scroll zone to their own special wheel which a good many, if not most, of the programs, including Firefox, which I am using to browse this board, do not recognize. Is there a way around this?

 

I have been wondering about this too. Why does it use it's own scroll message anyway? Why can't the scroll just send default mouse-Z messages? I don't see any advantage in their solution.

Now, a program that would globally scan for all fake-scroll messages, and send global real-scroll messages would be programmable, but I can't think of more simple ways right now.

 

I know if you go to Control Panel > Mouse there should be an option about enabling the scroll zone. It's just a checkbox.

 

The toucpad configuration can also be found by clicking the red Synaptics symbol in the taskbar, and then choose the rightmost 'fan' in the dialog window...

My touchpad has been working quite all right until recently - when all functions (for pad and buttons) disappeared! I have reinstalled the driver(s):
http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/notebook/tm_4000.html
and I can 'communicate' with the setup screen mentioned above... but there is no response from the pad/buttons whatsoever.

My USB mouse works perfectly, however...

Any suggestions as to what may be the trick..?

Model: Acer Travelmate 2301WLMi

 

seriously strange. I've updated my synaptics touchpad from their website, not my manufacturer's website and my scrolling works everywhere, almost every single program.

just go to the synaptics website and update from there.

Cheers,
Mike

 

I still miss contact with my touchpad. I have uninstalled older driver(s), (followed by removal of all strings containing 'synaptics' in the registry), I have reinstalled driver(s) from the Acer website, uninstalled those, and installed driver(s) from Synaptics website... but all this in vain: The pad and the buttons never responded.

Control panel feedback (from System, and from Mouse dialogs) indicate that all should be perfectly OK: I can access the configuration window(s) and make 'adjustments' - but the pad/buttons are silent.

Now I suspect hardware malfunction. And I wonder:
Is there any software out there, which would enable me to check hardware status - i.e. check the physical condition of my touchpad and its buttons?

(Might be nice to try before submitting the laptop to the nearest 'garage'... )

(pcpitstop.com did not help... I do not know of any other online (or 'free' software) diagnostic tools...)

 

Have you guys tried to just uninstall the synaptics drivers altogether?

It was advised on the MSI subforum. I did it and the generic windows mouse driver kicks in. It works great. Just make sure to set it to "assume wheel is present"

 

Thank you, Hucsman - your hint to the MSI forum (followed by a bit of lucky search) did the work:

I found the solution at
http://www.techsupportforum.com/lap...enly-stopped-working.html?highlight=synaptics

Now I know (too) that Fn+F7 is a valuable keyboard combination with Acer laptops...

Thanks again!

 

Unfortunately that does nothing, even with assume wheel present...at least on my 5670.

Maybe you mean update the driver with the generic one and keep the Synaptics stuff running? Let me try that...nope, didn't work.

 

Hucsman, good suggestion.

For those who are having problems with the synaptics drivers should do as he says. Usually fixes problems with mice as well.

Only downside is that you won't have the advanced features of the synaptics touchpad.

Cheers,
Mike

 

It's not that we're having problems--it's just that they designed the scroll zone feature to only work under certain conditions. The driver isn't emulating the wheel, it's doing something else. And uninstalling the driver won't cut it; I'd rather have the bootleg feature than none at all.

 

nivek, I don't know what you mean, but my scrolling works in every single program I use. If there's a scrolling bar I can use my scrolling feature.

 

Have you tried...Firefox 1.5? Guild Wars?

I'm looking for WHEEL functionality, not scroll functionality. The latter is less useful to me. I think you've completely missed the point of this thread. The point was can we get these Synaptics touchpads to send wheel scrolling messages. Basically an Intellimouse Explorer 4.0 built into our touchpad, if you have seen the thing with its multidirectional wheel.

 

I don't know about you guys, but just updating the drivers worked for me.

Cheers,
Mike

 

Downloaded the drivers from the Synaptics website. Haha, they're older than the ones Acer provides on their site. (Acer 11/05 vs Synaptics 8/05)

Good work Acer...they 'touch'ed the files, the versions are newer in the Synaptics version. Figures.

 

So did it work for you?

I hope so.

Even though manufacturers say to use their drivers instead of the original part drivers, I always go to the source, because chipsets and drivers for certain products are always updated at their source more frequently and should work since your manufacturer is using that part.

Hope that made sense as I have had a few beers, well several beers in me while watching a really sad korean drama.

Cheers,
Mike

 

Yup, thanks. Exactly what I was looking for. I was under the impression that Acer was givin' out the latest drivers, guess not.

Works like a charm--everywhere.

 

Great~!

Glad it works for you nivek. I know how annoying it is for the scroll function to not work.

We really need to sticky this or something, because this is like the 8th time this question has been posted for Synaptics touchpads since my enrollment on this forum.

Cheers,
Mike