Home Hardware Laptop Laptop Touchpad Mouse Not Working – What to do?

Laptop Touchpad Mouse Not Working – What to do?

Last Updated: January 7, 2023

Fixing the Frozen Laptop Trackpad Which Isn’t Working

You were typing a mail and suddenly you notice that the touchpad of your laptop doesn’t work? Has it stopped responding to your touch? Then you are in a fix! But worry not, we have come to your rescue.

How could you operate your laptop without a touchpad or a mouse? It’s impossible! A touchpad might stop working due to various reasons. It could be resolved by following some simple steps.

The problem, after all, isn’t as complicated as it looks! It’s always good to try a few hacks before taking it to the service center who charge much for such a simple problem. This article discusses every scenario which will lead to an unresponsive touchpad and also state the solution to fix your touchpad. Follow the basic guidelines to see what the problem might be.

So, let’s starts with;

#1 Checkup: Operating System Not Responding

Check the operating system of your system, is it windows or Mac? See if keyboard button works! If you are in the middle of the page, the best solution would be to type Control and Print buttons together. Does it work? A common scenario where the touchpad fails to work is where the computer’s operating system is struck.

If a computer is frozen or doesn’t respond to any of the commands inserted by you, naturally the touchpad too wouldn’t work. You can use windows button on your keyboard to scroll through the desktop. If the button doesn’t work, then the fault might be of the operating system.

Wait for a few minutes or restart your system. This will most easily solve the problem. Another way to check if the operating system is the culprit is to check on keyboard’s light. If the lid blinks or is on, then your touchpad is most likely to be safe.

#2 Fix: Touchpad Button is Turned-OFF

What if the touchpad button of your system itself is turned off? It is natural to the button to be turned off due to no usage of the system. It just goes into hibernation mode. Touchpad buttons have a tendency to turn off by themselves out of the blue.

Do other buttons in your system work? First, check for that. You can use the windows button or any system controls to see what exactly is causing the trouble. If you are able to navigate the system properly with the use of the buttons in your keyboard, then the operating system and your keyboard seem to work fine.

The other way to check this is by seeing the lid of the keyboard. Does it blink? If your answer is yes then your keyboard button is likely to be safe. If your touchpad button Is automatically turned off and if that is the reason why your system is not working, then you need to switch it on the back or activate the touchpad.

There is two way to do this. The first way is to press the buttons on the touchpad. There are two buttons that are located below the touchpad of every laptop. You can try pressing one of these buttons. This would activate the turned off touchpad use. The other alternative to turn on the touchpad is to press the ‘Fn button’ on the keyboard. Fn or function button would activate your touchpad quickly.

#3 Fix: External Device Problem

When did your touchpad stop working? Analyzing a scenario is paramount when technology is connected. What did you do to touchpad to stop working? Sometimes inserting an external storage to the laptop or computer might disable the touchpad. This process happens automatically.

If your touchpad stopped working immediately after a USB or PS/2 device was connected then this is likely to be the problem. Some external storage devices automatically disable the touchpad functions. This problem likely to happen the most when you use some external wireless mouse, where the mouse dongle is always connected to the laptop.

#4 Fix: Mouse Settings Problem

Touchpad might stop working due to the changed settings in the mouse. If that is the scenario, you need to enable the mouse settings so as to make the touchpad work.

The figure above clearly demonstrates what needs to be done when the mouse settings are the culprit. You can act accordingly. Scroll through your control panel option in the desktop.

If your touchpad is not using, you can use the windows button which will enable the start button of the windows. You can use arrows to scroll up or down to locate the control panel. Once the control panel is located you can press enter to open it.

Then scroll downwards using the arrow keys and locate the mouse settings menu. In some system, as shown above, the mouse settings would be replaced by the touchpad settings. Again, with the help of the enter button, go through that menu.

Check the clicker along the option of the touchpad. Check if it is enabled or disabled. It should always be enabled as shown above for the touchpad to work. You can also use an external USB mouse to do this procedure and locate the settings in the windows.

#5 Fix: Mouse Drivers Problem:

If a touchpad doesn’t work in most of the cases ‘Mouse Driver’ is the reason. A mouse driver had to be enabled by going to the control panel and enabling it. You can use the window button on your keyboard to select and use arrow keys to scroll across the screen. Additionally, you can also use an extra mouse through the USB connection to scroll across the screen. The choice is yours and does it as per your comfort level.

The drivers of the touchpad have to be checked first. It can be checked by pressing on the start button and locating the control panel. Once the control panel is open, go to the heading that reads as ‘Administrative Tools’. Once done click on the ‘Computer Management’ shortcut below. Check the drivers of the touchpad in the ‘Device Manager’ option and see the settings.

If there is any wrong setting, then it has to be corrected. The main thing that has to be checked is the mouse driver. What does the checker point towards? Is it disabled? Check for it. The driver has to be enabled and if not, you can easily allow it back by selecting the driver and clicking on the “Enable” button. Ensure for the proper settings.

Also, sometimes the touchpad driver might have a warning sign near the settings. Check for the warning sign. A warning sign would be in a yellow color triangle with a red exclamation.

Modern drivers also simply use the exclamatory mark to point towards a fault. If the warning sign appears near the device manager then it is time to reinstall the driver of the touchpad.

If can be done by uninstalling the driver first. Then locate the manufactures website. A manufactures website can be found by searching in the user guide. All user guides come with the details of manufacture. The other alternative to find manufactures address is to simply Google the manufactures name. Once you open the manufactures website, you will find the tab which points to drivers. Drivers are free to install or reinstall.

You have to click on the driver related to your model. Your model of the system could be found in the user guide. Once the model number of the driver is located, it has to be downloaded. After downloading, a wizard pops up asking if the driver has to be installed.

You need to click on the next button for 3 times and then click on the box in front of agreement and terms and conditions. Finally, you need to click on the finish button to install the driver. This reinstallation of the driver would solve all the problems related to the issues of the touchpad driver and it is good to use.

However, if there is no yellow button that signifies warning, even then it is better to update or reinstall the driver of the touchpad. Many a time’s even older version of touchpad drivers causes these problems. As a safety measure, the drivers have to be updated regularly.

Suggested Links;

#6 Fix: Check BIOS Setup

Few times the disabling of the hardware automatically in CMOS BIOS set up might be the culprit. Hence enabling it might solve the touchpad problem. If the touchpad of your device doesn’t work, you can use an additional mouse in your USB point to sort out this issue.

To enter the BIOS configuration, you can simply press F2 key and the key has to be pressed simultaneously. It should be noted that the F2 button should not be released until the BIOS configuration pops up. Pressing F2 would open up the BIOS Menu in which you can check for the hardware that has to be enabled. But however, if the F2 Key didn’t seem to work to open the menu, then pressing the Esc or maybe F1 key would lead you to the BIOS options.

It might take up to 10 seconds in some systems to open the BIOS menu. After getting into the BIOS you’ll need to search for mouse setting because it’s hard to tell as the setting’s navigation is different, in different BIOS.

If having a problem, then here; BIOS Setup: What It Is & How To Open Or Use It?

Most of the times, the ‘Advanced’ tab displays the specifics of various access drives. You need to point out to the category that says ‘Internal Pointing device’ as shown in the picture. Then see if it is enabled or disabled. If it is enabled, then do not touch anything. Close the window. But if it is disabled, click on the pointer to enable the ‘Internal pointing Device’. Close the window and see if the touchpad works.

#7 Fix: Check Computer in Safe Mode

A driver problem might come in the way of working on the touchpad. This can be solved by reinstalling each driver. However, it is a cumbersome process. What if after all those pain you took you to find that drivers are not the culprit?

The solution to know if the drivers are the culprit is to open the windows in a safe mode. If the touchpad works while running the windows in Safe Mode then the fault is of drivers that conflict with the mouse driver.

However even after opening the windows in the safe mode, you are facing the same issues, and then the drivers are not at fault. By performing this simple check, you could find out the problem related to conflict of mouse drivers.

If you find that the driver is the culprit, then the solution is simple. You need to update all the drivers of the motherboard of the system. An outdated driver is causing the problem. The updates of all the drivers can be found on the website of the manufacturer and downloaded from there.

#8 Fix: Registry Cleaning

The registry is the main key for your whole windows working and performance, due to poor computer system maintenance, you may experience Registry issues and later on lead to various computers hardware problems, including this one too.

To fix the registry issue you’ll need to get some best in class registry cleaner to repair and clean the bad values from the registry database.

All the working Registry Cleaner are only available in the paid version but before spending your money;

First, I want you to fix the registry issue by using a one single ‘Windows Command Prompt’ command because most of the times this problem get fixed by just putting a single command in the CMD and then you don’t even have to buy anything for your PC.

So, open CMD, as an administrator.
Then type the command “Sfc /Scannow” and hit enter. Make sure you don’t close this CMD window until the verification gets 100% completed.

Restart your computer and test it, if the blue screen was gone, then that’s good, if don’t, then I think now you should need to buy a Registry Cleaner for your OS.

If you don’t have any registry tuner or cleaner in your computer, then install a best in class cleaner in your PC to get the perfect performance and an error-free system’s lifespan.

Here are the two Top Rated Softwares which you can prefer;

1^st Best – Zookware Cleaner
2^nd Best – CCleaner Professional

After downloading the registry cleaner, just click on the scan button which will automatically start the full system scan and after that, it will show you every little problem what it founds in your computer.

Helpful Link: What’s A Good Registry Cleaner and How It Helps?

#9 Fix: Corrupt Operating System Files

We always tend to imagine the worst possible scenario thinking that our touchpad is faulty. But however, if none of the buttons of the keyboard are working, then it points out to a corrupt operating system.

In such a scenario, not just touchpad but none of the keyboard buttons work. The problem can’t be tackled even by trying with an additional mouse.

The only solution to this problem is uninstalling the Operating System from the system and again reinstalling it. This would ensure the solving of the touchpad issues.

Suggested Link: How to Install Windows XP/7/8/10?

#10 Fix: Touchpad is Faulty

We are sorry to break this news to you. If none of the above method works, then what you suspected at the beginning is likely to be true. It is the touchpad that is faulty and it needs to be replaced to solve this issue.

You can use an additional mouse to sort out the issue for urgent purposes. It is wise to take the system to your service provider and let them examine it. In 99% of the situations, the touchpad has no scope to be repaired. The only solution lies in replacing the touchpad.

“That’s all for now, thanks for sticking with the article, and you know it will always good to let me know about the article in the comments down below.” 🙂