Sony Vaio touchpad - how to disable it?

[Jux]

I've googled and googled and googled. There are ways but they don't apply. I'm running Vista and most of the options suggested simply don't appear or they're greyed out. It's driving me nuts! The m/c is a VGN-NR11S btw.

I've sent a message to Sony, but no reply. Meanwhile, my cursor jumps about like a grasshopper on speed, and I type gobbledegook. I have to watch every letter.

I don't know whether it's Vista that's the problem or the hardware.

I've tried uninstalling the driver, but every time I restart, Vista automatically reinstalls it and I can't stop it! I'm not sure the uninstall works anyway, as the pad responds as normal if I don't restart straight away, but I don't think that's overly relevant tbh, as it would, wouldn't it?

Oh boy, I'm tearing my hair out!

I would try uninstalling the alps touchpad driver and trying the Synaptics driver instead, as per the link given in this answer: www.vistax64.com/drivers/218439-disable-alps-touchpad-vista-x64.html

Apparently that works, even though it's the wrong manufacturer, and then allows you to choose "disable" under the mouse settings (which in this case is your touchpad) in control panel.

N.B. I'm assuming you do have an external mouse you can use after doing this!

Good idea ScreaminEagle if it weren't for the "I type gobbledegook. I have to watch every letter" comment which indicates that it's not only use of the touchpad that's a problem - it's the inadvertent cursor movement from accidentally brushing against the active touchpad.

ScreamingEagle (great name); I don't have a "Hardware and Sound" option in the Control Panel.

Most of the time I don't touch the pad when I'm typing. I have checked this really carefully and have a squidgy wrist rest thing which keeps my hands fairly high for typing. It happens most often on the y.

lazydog, I shall investigate that link right now. Thanks.

If that doesn't work I'm getting a piece of card and sticking that on it, but I'm still not convinced that it is inadvertent touching, as it were.

lazydog, you're fantastic!

I downloaded the Synaptics driver, disabled the mouse, and found the touchpad as unresponsive as I had hoped. Totally caput.

Then I came here to say thanks, opened the thread, started typing and lo! the keyboard is disabled too!

I guess that's why Sony are so unhelpful.

Luckily, I have a number of keyboards hanging around so I'm all set. All I need now is a monitor I can plug in and I can hide my laptop under the table like those, what do you call 'em, tower things!

Seriously though, you have solved my problem. Thanks again.

Give me a mo - there's no way that changing the touchpad driver should have disabled the keyboard - I'll get back to you!

If you look under keyboard in control panel, and go to hardware, what do you see?

Infact, could you simply reboot your laptop with the external mouse plugged in, but no keyboard, and see whether the laptop's keyboard is still not working (sorry for the multiple posts, LOL!)

Sorry to be away so long - very long call from late brother's best mate.

I had to reboot after I'd installed the new mouse driver, lazydog, and that's when I found the keyboard didn't work either!

Under keyboard in control panel it says Standard PS/2 keyboard. (It says the touchpad in Standard PS/2 mouse btw.)

Hmm... This is odd.

Had you used that external mouse with the laptop previously?

If not, could you humour me and try booting up without the mouse plugged in, and seeing if the keyboard then works?

(Although obviously this is no help, as you cannot use it without a mouse - I'm just curious! )

Personally, my preference at this stage would probably be to undo everything we did and reinstall the latest ALPS touchpad drivers and go back to your idea of "taping a piece of card over the touchpad" solution. It actually sounds more practical than having a non-working keyboard, to me!

Better still - tape a credit card over it. Does the job and also totally coincidentally keeps it handy for all those online bargains

Oooh! I need to get a life - I've found an exciting forum post on this subject. It still requires you to undo what changes we made, and then try this potential solution:

Jumping erratic cursor fix!
by pcsmarts - 05/02/10 7:42 AM In reply to: On Fedora by eCubeH

This problem has driven me crazy for almost a year now since I purchased my Sony Vaio. The cursor would wildly jump all over the place will typing in any application, really bad on facebook as it would constantly scroll page up & down along with closing my window or go to previous page and I would lose everything. I thought it was possibly my blue tooth mouse at first, but it happend with usb mouse or no mouse at all. It is with great relief I can say I have finally found the fix! It is so simple I'm surprised no one else has come up with it. Go into your mouse or touch pad properties and uncheck the box that says hide cursor while typing. This fixed the problem for me 100%, I'm just aggrivated that it took me a year to actually figure out something so simple. Hope this works for everyone else......

Hi lazydog! Thanks for working so hard on this for me.

I too came across that post about hiding the cursor! It didn't work Can't remember whether it was because there wasn't an option on my driver, or because it, er, just didn't work! (Probably something to do with Vista [source of all evil emoticon]

I will unplug mouse and reboot though and let you know what happens.

OK, have rebooted minus USB mouse. The PS/2 mouse works but the keyboard doesn't. Am using the USB keyboard.

I will reboot again with USB k/b unplugged and be back soon.

(Think your option of credit card is a good one!)

Interestingly the PS/2 kb didn't work having booted up with USB kb disconnected.

Does that tell you anything?! (Except not to buy a Vaio?)

All it really tells us is that using the Synaptics touchpad driver under Vista, for your model of Vaio, doesn't work. (Admittedly a large proportion of the posts I found advising doing that were from people using various Linux distro's, or who had downgraded to XP, but some were Vista Vaio users.)

The very odd thing is that the built in keyboard doesn't need a manufacturer's driver - it should just work, in the same way as a PS/2 keyboard should just work on a desktop PC before any drivers have loaded. That implies that using the wrong touchpad driver has somehow caused a fundamental hardware conflict.

I would hesitate to suggest that people don't buy Sony Vaio machines as my old one was fantastic and survived 7 years of real abuse (double figures of falls off the arm of the sofa and a couple of substantial lager spillages over the keyboard ) but I do get the impression that their newer models are less reliable...

I actually can't think of a manufacturer that that statement doesn't apply to, to be honest I've now started to break the habit of a lifetime and advise our customers to consider extended warranties on new laptops because we see so many with catastrophic failures that are only 12-18 months old ...HP probably being the worst for that, imho.

Sorry to have not been much help. If it were my laptop, I'd now revert back to the correct drivers and try the card over the touchpad idea. If that doesn't solve the problem I'd then be looking at trying other/older alps drivers, followed (if unsuccessful) by an upgrade to Win7 or a downgrade to XP, and as a last resort I'd probably try replacing the touchpad and seeing if that solves it, but that's because hardware repair is my area...I wouldn't advise you do that one!

Sorry that this has beaten me - not often that happens, but when it does, it seems to invariably be a Vista machine!

Feel free to email me if you want to carry on brainstorming off forum:
l#a#z#y#d%o%g%a%c%r%e%s@gmail ~dot~ com, without the obviously erroneous characters!

lazydog, you've been great. It does seem to me that there is a problem with Vaios and that Sony aren't awfully worried about helping. This one is nearly 3 years old and has served my elder brother well enough, though he says he did find the cursor jumped about a bit. Being a software engineer and not a typist, and not indulging in forums like I do, he wasn't too worried.

I told him I'd cruelly maimed his ex, and he thought it was quite funny.

I don't think I like Vista that much tbh, though I've only been using it, and this m/c, for a week and haven't given it a fair chance. I could use one of my bro's multiple licenses for 7 instead of going back to XP. He says 7 seems OK, but he hasn't had it for long. Mind you, I have a disk with XP, but not one for 7, so it'll be XP almost certainly.

I think credit card over over the touchpad is the way to go (and I know the very one - they've annoyed me hugely!).

Thank you so much.

We have both got Sony Vaio's which we bought last year. I am in the middle of an MA as is my husband - and we have been driven mad by the curser jumping around. We are so glad to have found this really useful page having googled the problem.

Thanks for the advice - have now disabled the touchpad and hiding curser whilst typing and really hope this works for us.

We were so desperate we were out looking for new computers today and having found this site will hopefully save some money.

The fan has been a problem too, so have had to send both computers back for that, so probably would never buy a Sony Vaio again.

Thanks all