Is your laptop touchpad not working? Follow our troubleshooting techniques to make it work again in a very short interval. When you don’t have a spare mouse and your laptop touchpad is not working, it is hard to do anything on your laptop. Don’t worry. Fixing a laptop touchpad issue is fairly simple than you expect.
The first and easiest tip is to restart your computer. Sometimes, a simple restart would solve minor issues and glitches. We know it is painful to switch off the laptop directly by using the power button, but at this moment it is merely impossible to operate without a touchpad, mouse, or other pointing devices. After restarting, if your Laptop touchpad is not working, follow the instructions below. Please note you should have an external mouse to follow these instructions or you should be a pro in keyboard shortcuts.
Check if the touchpad setting is enabled
The touchpad is not working on the laptop is primarily due to disabling the settings unknowingly. In every laptop or computer, there is a combination that toggles the touchpad on and off. It is usually the Fn key in combination with F keys F1 through F12. It can be identified by little icons on the function keys. However, the function keys for enabling or disabling the laptop touchpad settings may vary based on the laptop manufacturer and the model number. If that doesn’t work, follow the below steps.
- Go to the start menu, click Settings, and go to device settings.
- Check whether the touchpad setting is enabled.
Sometimes, the device manager doesn’t handle the Laptop touchpad enabling functions. In that case, go to the start menu, and type mouse settings. Click the device settings tab, your device, enable, click okay, and apply.
Disconnect the external mice
There are certain laptop models that automatically switch off your touchpad when it is connected to an external mouse. If your laptop touchpad is not working, disconnect an external mouse by simply unplugging the keyboard. If it is a bluetooth mouse, disconnect the mice from the bluetooth. If it is a wireless one, simply remove the dongle to disconnect it. It is always better to disconnect all the external devices once and restart the system.
Update your touchpad drivers
This problem may occur when your touchpad driver is outdated. This is one of the most common reasons if your laptop touchpad is not working. To update the driver, go to device manager, mice and other pointing devices, and select your touchpad. Right click on touchpad and select update driver. System will check the internet for the driver software and update automatically if you select update device driver and select automatically for updated driver software.
If your laptop can’t find an updated driver, check the laptop manufacturer’s website and follow their instructions or surf the internet with your laptop model followed by your OS and touch pad driver. Please make sure you uninstall the old touchpad driver before installing the new driver.
If you did the above step and still your laptop touchpad is not working, go to device manager, right click over the touchpad driver, and select uninstall. Now, restart your laptop and windows will reinstall the driver.
Check BIOS setup
You should make sure the touchpad settings has not been disabled in the touchpad settings. To enable the touchpad settings in the BIOS, Just restart your computer and be ready to press F2 key to open the BIOS settings. Once the setting is opened, enable the touchpad settings and press F10 key or press exit menu and then enter to save the settings.
Touchpad is defective
If you follow all these steps and still your laptop touchpad is not working, it may be defective. You should contact the manufacturer or the laptop service centre to get the job done. Sometimes, it could require replacement of the touchpad or an another hardware component.
