Miss-behaving Lappy

[Welly]

I've/We've/They've [delete as appropriate] got an old-ish Dell Inspiron 6400 at home and the kids keep moaning that the 'touch pad' is playing up.....inspecting said problem certainly reveals a less than sensitive mouse? touch? seeing the pointy thing (marvel all those at my computer knowledge) darting about all over the place a generally miss-behaving.

Anything that can be done here? like replacing the touchy doo-dad or is that like trying open-heart surgery for beginners?

I've recently spent £43.00 of my ever diminishing cheddar on a battery/charger

[StevieboyTD]

Cheapest option is to buy a cheapo USB mouse and use that, next up is replacing the touchpad, cost around £10-£15 for a 2nd hand on on ebay, bit fiddly to replace as you need to strip the top off the lappy. Takes an hour or so but it should fix things.

[Welly]

Ok cheers! I don't mind fiddly jobs for some reason so might give it a whirl

They do use a USB mouse thing but the sticky-out bit gets mullered - about which they also complain

Just thinking, isn't a second-hander likely to have the same potential issues?

[steve_earwig]

I'd re-in stall the touchpad drivers before I was certain it was the problem...

[gumby6371]

I'd check the mouse pad connection first, there is usually a small cable off the mouse pad which plugs into the main board.

The majority (typically your machine will be different) disassemble like this;
plastic strip above keyboard GENTLY!!! levers off with the help of a strong finger nail or small screwdriver
keyboard is usually secured under said strip by a couple of screws
ease keyboard free and fold back GENTLY (take care not to disturb the ribbon cable as they can be a git to put back in with sausage fingers like mine)
you should see a cable running from the top of the mouse pad into a connector block - make sure its securely fitted and re-assemble

shouldn't take more then 5 minutes, just remember computers are like women, if you have to force it in the hole you probably shouldn't be doing it!!!

[steve_earwig]

Google is a wonderful thing - http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/s ... /index.htm Looks like you need to remove the (Mrs.) palm rest first.

I'd still uninstall/reinstall it first.

[Welly]

Great stuff,

I'll have a look when I get home........IF I can get near the thing that is

[Doggy]

I can't stand those touchpad things, so my daughter 'liberated' a miniature USB optical mouse & its brilliant, (& small enough to use on the bit of casing next to the touchpad).

Do a bit of e-Baying - I just go a new battery (£25), mains charger, (£4) & car charger (£5), all delivered.
(& in this way Doggy avoided all the grief he normally gets for not telling anyone wot e wants for father's day).

[FarmerPug]

my old laptop was an inspiron 6400, 4gb of ram and on xp and still slow as hell.
but sometimes the mouse did play up, a wipe with some alcohol wipes cleaned off grease on it and got it going, luckily it never completley gave up the ghost, unlike the keyboard which was replaced.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Dell-JM051-Inspir ... 538wt_1141
this is the thing to get, the inspiron im guessing yours is like mine the silver paint seens to wear off them

[STALLED]

Buy a Mac!

But if that fails, the USB mouse seems like the cheapest option, besides pulling it apart and replacing the trackpad!

[FarmerPug]

Buy a Mac!

But if that fails, the USB mouse seems like the cheapest option, besides pulling it apart and replacing the trackpad!

there is no doubt a mac is a superior machine but they are costly and having to pay foe applecare is insulting

[steve_earwig]

Incidentally I just replaced the heat paste on my pc's cpu - I'd only had a smear last time and it's hard to buy here so I bought some from GB. Result, it's running 10 degrees cooler now.

So, fired with my success, I thought I'd do the cpu on the laptop. The heat paste was so old the heatsink was glued onto the cpu and pulled it out of the zif when I lifted it up. Ouch. So there I was, holding it all up to eye level and wondering where the cpu finished and the heatsink started. I introduced a fingernail to see if I could get it going and... off it popped and bounced across the table - bonk! bonk! bonk! I though it must be fecked now but it seems to have survived. It's not running any cooler than it was

[FarmerPug]

the inspiron had a reputation for overheating mind a few years back dell laptops spontaneously combusting mine never gave any trouble just was used by a friend on top of a jumper which blocked the air intake and melted a bit of the plastic beside the heat shrink

[Welly]

My kids always seem to have the thing placed on a fluffy blanket/pillow/bed etc...

I've told them and told them and told them and tol.............

[gumby6371]

I know Dell's had a problem with spontaneous combustion of the batteries, I bought a replacement battery for a D600 on eBay once, it turned out the battery I recieved was a recalled battery (you can check them by serial number on the Dell site) and the seller lived strangely close to the Dell parts distribution centre!!!!
Got it replaced by Dell so wasn't to bothered, I did report the seller to eBay tho, never heard anything back