Troubleshoot Dell Touchpad Not Working Issue in 5 Minutes

If your Dell Touchpad is not working, it can be disabled from your keyboard. Most Dell laptops have a touchpad key or a shortcut combination that disables and enable the touchpad. Hence, your touchpad won’t work if you have pressed the touchpad key by mistake.

This issue mostly occurs after updating the bios version or using a laptop for 1-2 hours. Fortunately, Dell has addressed this problem and released a touchpad firmware utility, which will help you to upgrade to the latest firmware. You can download the firmware utility from the official dell website.

Moreover, you will also encounter this issue if your touchpad has a hardware problem or a faulty driver, preventing it from working properly.

Before you follow all of these methods, restart your computer, as it is possible that your touchpad stops working due to not receiving power from the motherboard. Therefore, restart the laptop, which often helps revive the unresponsive touchpad. If that does not work, plug the external mouse into the USB port if available. If not, borrow it from your friend to follow the methods.

1. Enable Touchpad from your keyboard

Most Dell laptops have a touchpad key that allows the users to enable and disable the touchpad. 90 percent of the users have fixed this issue by enabling the hardware-disabled touchpad using the touchpad function key. Therefore, if your laptop has a touchpad key, there is a high possibility that it is hardware disabled.

To enable the touchpad, find the key with a touchpad icon in your function keys. Once you find it, either press the touchpad key or use the combination of the function key and the touchpad key to enable the touchpad. The most common keys that are used for dell laptops to enable or disable the touchpad are F6, F8, or Fn+F6/F8/Delete.

Remember, some laptops have a button at the top side of the touchpad that quickly enables and disables the touchpad. So if you cannot find the key, then it is possible that it is disabled through that button. You can try enabling the touchpad by pressing the button.

2. Enable the Touchpad from the Mouse settings

In some cases, the touchpad automatically gets disabled from the mouse settings. Therefore, you need to check the mouse settings to ensure it is not disabled. If it is disabled, enabling it from the mouse settings will fix this issue.

1. To do so, press the Windows key and type main.cpl in the input box.
2. Click OK to open the mouse properties settings.

   

3. Then, find the touchpad tab, which is usually located next to the Hardware option.
   
   The name of a touchpad tab is usually the name of a touchpad manufacturer such as Alps Electric Corporation. Elan Microelectronics, Synaptics, etc,

   

4. Here, ensure that the Enable Touchpad option is checked or the Enable Device button for the touchpad is active.

   

5. Once done, verify if your touchpad is working. If it’s not, move on to the other method.

3. Disable Cursor Suppression from the registry editor

Cursor Suppression is a registry file that is used to enable cursor suppression. When cursor suppression is enabled, your mouse pointer will get suppressed. As a result, your touchpad will work, but you cannot see your mouse pointer on the screen. Therefore, try disabling it by following the steps:

1. Press the Windows key and type Registry Editor.

   

2. Open the registry editor and go to the following path using the left-side menu.

   Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

3. Double-click the EnabledCursorSuppression registry entry and change the value data to 0 to disable the cursor suppression.

   

4. Once done, restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
5. Once done, verify if your problem is fixed.

4. Update or Reinstall Touchpad Driver

Drivers are used to make communication between the computer and a hardware component. If they get corrupted, the touchpad won’t work because it takes instructions from the drivers. So, when you update or reinstall the drivers, the corrupted drivers will be overwritten, which will fix this issue.

4.1 Update Touchpad drivers

1. Right-click the Start Menu and select Device Manager to open it.

   

2. Once it is opened, expand the Mice and other pointing devices.
3. Right-click the touchpad driver and select Update driver.

   

4. Click Search automatically for drivers from the options. If you receive a message The best drivers for your device are already installed, try the following steps.

   

5. Right-click the touchpad driver and select Update driver.
6. Choose Browse my computers for drivers.

   

7. Then, click Let me pick from a list of available drivers on my computer.
8. Select the compatible touchpad driver from the list.

   

9. Once done, click Next to install the driver and check if your problem is resolved. If the issue persists, try installing the touchpad drivers from the manufacturer’s site.

4.2 Reinstall Touchpad drivers

If updating the touchpad drivers does not fix your touchpad, try downloading the drivers from the manufacturer’s site according to your laptop’s model number.

You will find only compatible drivers for your laptop on the manufacturer’s site. Hence, it is always advisable to download the drivers from the laptop manufacturer’s site.

1. To do so, go to the official Dell website.
2. Hover Support and click Driver and Downloads.

   

3. Search your laptop with the model number.
4. Once done, click Find drivers and download the touchpad driver.

   

5. Once the downloading is finished, install the driver by simply following the on-screen instructions.
6. Restart your computer and check if your touchpad is still not working.

5. Enable Touchpad from motherboard Bios settings

It is possible after updating the bios version; your touchpad gets disabled from the bios. You need to check the bios settings because if the touchpad is disabled from bios, it won’t work.

To check if your touchpad is enabled or not:

1. Restart your laptop and wait for the manufacturer’s logo.
2. Press the Delete or F12 key to enable the motherboard Bios settings. The most common keys are Esc, F2, F8, F10, and F12, which are used to access bios settings.
3. Once you access the motherboard bios settings, go to the Advanced settings and find Internet Pointing Device to make sure that it is enabled. Once done, save the changes and exit the bios settings.

   

4. Once done, wait for the laptop to turn on. Then, see if the touchpad is working. If it’s not working, contact your laptop manufacturers.