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On my Lenovo Ideapad Z500 laptop, the touchpad works fine just after I power up the machine. A little later (usually 30 minutes to one hour) it starts malfunctioning. The pointer doesn't respond normally, touching the pad causes the pointer to move abruptly into different directions continually, even when the touch is fixed to a single point. Trying to move the pointer in a straight line results in the pointer taking a random "zigzag" path and not arriving anywhere near the intended destination.

Operating system: Windows 7 64-bit

Touchpad Manufacturer: ELAN

Driver Version: 11.4.8.1

Supporting Firmware: Elan Smart-Pad

Notes:

  1. I believe it's a hardware problem, because the touchpad is not malfunctioning always (as mentioned above). Also, because I tried uninstalling and re-installing the drivers and that didn't work either. More over, I tried Fedora 20 Live on the laptop and the touchpad problem still persists.
  2. When trying an external USB mouse, no problem is detected.
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  • First off: have you tried uninstalling, then reinstalling the drivers?
    – Nate Koppenhaver
    Apr 14, 2014 at 20:54
  • Yes I did. Didn't work
    – user312019
    Apr 15, 2014 at 3:03
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    It might be a bad contact manifesting after the laptop warms up. Try to clean out air intakes to improve ventilation.
    – harrymc
    Apr 15, 2014 at 9:14
  • I tried, didn't work either.
    – user312019
    Apr 16, 2014 at 13:37

4 Answers 4

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+50

The touchpad is sensitive to heat. If your laptop is becoming overly warm and possibly overheating it will have a terrible result on your touchpad such as you are experiencing. When the touchpad warms it will not react to your finger as if it were cool. I highly recommend in the interim cleaning all air intake ducts with a can of compressed air. If the laptop still experiences overheating and lack of touch pad sensitivity I would disassemble and clean the fan and air intakes from the inside.

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  • I routinely clean the airways of the laptop. Besides, I face the same problem when using the laptop inside of a data center (which is a very cold environment).
    – user312019
    Apr 16, 2014 at 13:32
  • Hardware problem then.
    – Travis
    Apr 17, 2014 at 12:52
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Definitely yes, it is a hardware problem. It likely is the touchpad, but could also be the motherboard, or any component that is 'in between' the touchpad and motherboard. Can you disable the touchpad and use an external mouse? Are there any other problems?

There is a small possibility that it could be some other Windows problem. You reformat and reload Windows onto your computer, or you could try a live linux distribution, eg Ubuntu, Mint, OpenSuse, Fedora. There are others too. If you have the same problem with Linux, then it is certainly a hardware problem.

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  • An external mouse works properly without any problems. Running Fedora 20 on the laptop didn't solve the touchpad issues.
    – user312019
    Apr 16, 2014 at 13:33
  • I would say that your problem is almost certainly with the touchpad, but it could be something intermediate (between the touchpad and the CPU). If it still have warranty cover, this should be covered by warranty. If it is out of warranty, you could try replacing (or have or have a repair shop replace) the touchpad.
    – David
    Apr 16, 2014 at 15:04
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As the problem arrives both on Windows and Fedora : This is not a driver problem.
As the problem arrives in the cold data-center environment : This is not a heating problem.

Conclusion: This is a hardware problem with the touchpad itself, but it would take a technician to find out. If the laptop is still under warranty, invoking it might be the best solution.

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This issue has also occurred in a few select fujitsu touchpads using elan drivers. After consultation with Fujitsu, this was deemed to be a firmware issue with the touchpad and a patch was released.

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  • 1
    Can you edit to add some more details? Link to a Fujitsu document, firmware download page, anything official from the company that confirms this and maybe offers the fix?
    – user
    Jan 20, 2016 at 21:35

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