I've had problems with the Dell (M6400) touchpad and keyboard since the beginning, mostly just annoyances but eventually it becomes too much. Lately, sometimes when I boot up the touchpad driver has lost its ability to "scroll" like a virtual mouse-wheel, a feature I use a LOT. The control panel brings up the driver settings property pages, but the middle button is gone and the links to set up scrolling and other features don't respond to clicks.... The only recourse has been to uninstall, reboot, reinstall -- sometimes, multiple times until everything is working again.
Symbiosis
The cruel symbiotic relationship I have with this laptop has become clear as I have adapted myself to its numerous tiny problems: the touchpad problem makes me want to leave it running at all times, the keyboard problem makes me not want to dock and un-dock and the GPU overheat problem makes me not want to dock and use two screens. As I've adapted to the needs of this computer it has slowly worked me out of a docked two-screen environment, off my desk, out of my office, and into a recliner in another room like a pod in the matrix (sitting still so the power adapter doesn't fall out of the loose connector in the back).
The Red Pill
I replaced the motherboard to fix the adapter connector. I also replaced the GPU and two fans. I finally gave up on Dell's driver downloads and just went to Synaptics to get their latest driver (Windows XP/Vista and Win7 32-bit Edition v15.2.20). During a reboot during the install I got a BSOD, but no problems after that. It comes with gesture recognition software (Scrybe), as well. So far so good. Except for the keyboard problem. Damn. Next, how I assert my mastery over the machines....
No comments:
Post a Comment