Trackpad suddenly stops working (Not Fn-F7)

I am running Windows XP Pro on my Aspire One A150 and it runs great with the exception of one issue.

Every so often when I'm using the machine, the trackpad and associated buttons stop working.

Usually it happens after I've been using the machine without input for a little while ... for example - Skype videoconference where I've been talking and not using the trackpad or if I've browsed to a website, walked away, and then came back.

A reboot fixes the issue. Fn-F7 does not.

This has occurred on AC and on battery.

Plugging in a USB mouse lets me control the pointer, but the trackpad does not start recognizing input again without a reboot.

Device Manager reports that the Trackpad is operating normally, even when it is not responding.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks!

 

Last week I had the same issue....In my case the ribbon was not well connected on the motherboard anymore....I guess it was due after putting extra RAM in my AA1 and didnt put this ribbon back as it should. Walking around with the AA1 most probably made the connection to fail......cleaned the ribbon and put it back in the connector and works since again

 

what touchpad driver are you using? I had this issue with a touchpad driver.

 

I'm using the Synaptics v11.1.4.0 (4/25/2008) driver.

 

I'll keep that in mind as I did open the box to put in more memory and replace the wlan card.

The strange thing is that it happens even if the machine is not moved at all and a simple reboot fixes the issue.

 

since last week i have the same problem, sometimes when i boot XP the trackpad dont works, so i have to reboot one time or 2 times to get this issue fix. I have open the A110 to upgrade RAM but the pad cable is ok, i have checked

 

In my case the cable was in i's connector...I took it out then reconnected it...then it worked

 

you can regain usage of touch pad without having to reboot. go to task manager, go to processes and kill syntp.exe.
the driver works well but the synaptics controll app (chiral rotate,pinching etc) crashes A LOT. so after killing the syntp.exe you can use the touchpad. the best way to counter this is, to uninstall the tp drivers, or installing older, more stable drivers n apps from synaptics. btw, this only affects some machines while others works just well.

cheers. :|

 

Thanks.

I swear that this computer knows that we're talking about it because it has not had a trackpad issue since I first posted.

 

Spoke too soon.

After not having the issue for a little while, it came back multiple times on Christmas ... usually during a Skype Video session.

Killing the Syn app did not bring the pointer back. On some occasions, had to restart twice to get the pointer to respond.

 

try this, get the xp drivers from support.acer-euro.com and set compatibility mode to syntpenh.exe in c:\program files\synaptics\syntp\. set it to winXP compatibility mode. might work. mines been behaving for more than 2 months now. not dead once.... but then again if you have the hdd version, that's a different ball game. a mate of mine said that, a friend of his friend* (haha) found out that acer had jumped the bandwagon too early on the hdd version to out take hp's netbook release. (that's why the stock bios is kinda shitty + the flickering and stuff) and as of today - with the latest release of bios upgrade (3309) i guess no amount of bios updating will fix the AA1.... and with the coming of a 10" AA1, i guess all of us are going to be ditched by acer.... unless they read this and grow some....

 

I figured out the problem a while ago, but just realized that I never posted about it here.

It ended up being a loose connector. When I disassembled to add more memory, I folded the trackpad ribbon so that it was under tension to pull out of the header. I guess certain movements and heat would cause it to move slightly and the connection would break long enough for it to stop being recognized.

I re-folded the ribbon so that it "springs" into the header instead of out. This has solved the problem so far.