GT70 2OC touchpad not working properly after Win8.1 update

I called msi tech support today about an issue and I feel like the solution they proposed is BS so I was hoping that someone with more technical expertise than myself could comment on this.

I recently upgraded my GT70 2OC to Windows 8. In order to eliminate any risk of residual files from old drivers causing compatibility issues, I used my Windows 8 DVD to reformat the hard disk and reinstall a fresh copy of Windows 8. Then I immediately updated to Windows 8.1 and began installing the Windows 8.1 drivers from msi's website.

However, my touchpad is exhibiting some odd behaviour. Next to the touchpad, there is a button that toggles the touchpad on/off. When the touchpad is turned off, the button should be lit up (as is the case in Win8) and when the touchpad is on, the button should NOT be lit. What's actually happening is that if I press the button once, it will turn the touchpad off but the light will not turn on. Once the touchpad is off, it CANNOT be turned back on using the button - instead, I must either put the computer to sleep and reawaken it OR reboot it completely in order to regain access to the touchpad.

The only things installed on my laptop are Windows 8.1, all the updates, Synaptics Touchpad Drivers, SCM (system control manager) and that's it! No peripherals are connected and no other software/utility/driver is installed yet.

What msi told me is that they cannot assist me in troubleshooting the issues because I used my Windows 8 DVD to erase the recovery partition. They are saying that I must restore to the recovery partition (msi agreed to mail me the recovery DVD's), which will install Windows 8 again, then I must update to 8.1 from there and redownload all the drivers again from their website. However, I fail to see the difference between restoring a recovery partition with Windows 8 followed by upgrading all my drivers to 8.1 versus simply installing a clean copy of Win8, updating to 8.1 and then downloading the drivers from the website. It seems that msi is just trying to brush me off by offering irrelevant and useless suggestions.

Comments?

 

Just about all OEMs require the OS you're using to be from them. They tend to shy away from the situation otherwise, or attribute any number of problems on the installation. The last resort is for them to advise a factory image recovery, and if that doesn't work, that's the end of the troubleshooting and the beginning of a RMA process.

Was this problem going on when you first installed Windows 8 (prior to upgrading to 8.1)?

 

The problem does NOT happen with Windows 8.... but I also noticed that after upgrading to 8.1, the BIOS stops working. Like if I hold "delete" on boot to access the BIOS, I can't use the keyboard to move through the menus. So it's most likely the case that my BIOS version is incompatible with Windows 8.1. However, until I restore to a factory image (which doesn't even affect the BIOS), they will not help me.

And what's really annoying is that, when I looked at my BIOS version, it says E1763IMS.507 and I can't compare that with the most recent version available on their website, since they are calling that one Version 50W, which is clearly a different naming convention. However, it also says on their website that for the GT70 2OC with Windows 8, you need BIOS version 50W, which is the SAME version as what's indicated for Windows 8.1.... but whether my E1763IMS.507 is the same as 50W seems impossible to determine.

 

All my issues were solved by updating the BIOS and the EC Firmware.

 

Now all you need to do is revert to the factory Windows 8 installation so MSI can support you in the future! Congrats on solving it, and thanks for following up.