Resolved Kill the touch-pad - but how?

DW and I both hate the touch-pad on her netbook. In her case it's an Elantech device. I'm not fond of the bigger ones on laptops either. If I had my way, the dumb b*****d that invented the thing would be keel-hauled.

I have tried, with limited success, to kill the thing. We use a USB wireless mouse which works a treat and we never want to see another touch pad. The problem with it is that, when it remains active, typing on the netbook's flat keyboard will result in inadvertent touching of the pad.

I'd like to find a "kosher" way of killing it, short of opening the case and snipping the wires.

I went into Control Panel - Mouse and set the flag that says "Disable if an external mouse is connected ". Maybe because we use a USB wireless mouse, it doesn't trip that particular flag.

I then went into Device Manager and disabled/removed the Elantech driver. I also checked the start menu to be sure the Elantech item is set to "off ".

For about a week it remained dead, but today it's active again and none of the above procedures will kill it. Is there something else I can do that would be a permanent solution, or should I open the case and rip the stupid thing out?

BTW, this netbook is an ASUS eeePC running Win 98 SP3. It has 1MB Ram.

 

Hi fdamp, What happens if you go > Control Panel > Mouse > Touch > and clear Tap to click & Tap and Drag?
Do you have Disable this Device?
Check to see if that stops it. Neil.

 

That was the first thing I tried, Pete. Didn't do anything. My son (an MSCE) suggested going into Device Manager and deleting the driver. That worked initially - the pad was inactive for a few days - but now it gets re-installed by the "Found new hardware" feature when the machine re-boots.

I'm beginning to think that physically disconnecting it might be the only permanent solution.

Neil - I'll try your suggestion when DW has finished her crosswords later this morning.

 

Device Manager didn't help either, Pete. I found an uninstall progam for Elantech (the touoch-pad manufacturer) and ran it through "Start-Run ". There is now no software on the machine associated with the touch-pad, but it's still functioning!

Neil - there's nothing in "Control Panel > Mouse" called "Touch" or "Tap ".

The "Mouse Properties > Hardware" pulldown shows two devices. One is a PS/2 compatible mouse and the other is an HID Compliant mouse. When I unplug the cordless mouse, I get the "Code 45" message in the "properties" box telling me the HID mouse is unplugged.

The PS/2 mouse is recognised as a Microsoft item and is supposedly connected to the PS/2 mouse port. There is no external PS/2 port on this computer. so I'm assuming it's hardwired. Before I ran the Elantech uninstall program, the touchpad was recognised as an Elantech device.

Incidentally, the Netbook is an ASUS Model 1000HA and runs Win XP with SP3.

I guess I'm going to have to open the case and unplug the damned thing. I'll also contact ASUS customer support, but I don't think we have coverage on this unit any more.

I'll keep you posted.

Frank Damp

 

Eventually, after a full week had passed, I got a message from ASUS customer support that said that the touch pad disable feature is not functional in Windows XP. Interestingly, I did get about three weeks of it being disabled after I followed instrucions from my MCSE son!

I'm now about to open the case and unplug the SOB. Does anyone know if I'll get a raft of "missing hardware" messages? It's such a big issue for us both that I'd even be willing to put up with diagnostic messages at start-up. It's supposed to be "plugged into a PS/2 port ", but I suspect it might be hard-wired.

 

Pete:

In DM, the "usage" selection is greyed out for the touch pad, so I can't disable it. Despite it being an Elantech device, the hardware description says it's a Microsft device.

I tried opening the case, but haven't been successful, so I guess we'll just have to be more careful when typing.

I guess I'll flag this thing "Resolved "

 

Not a netbook but my laptop allows you to disable the touchpad in the BIOS, have you looked there?

Edit: For my system it's under advanced/system configuration/internal pointing device (enabled/disabled)