Laptop power saving settings disable touchpad buttons &

undrop79 · #1 (**permalink**) 02-17-2006, 09:34 AM

Hello!

A friend of mine purchased a Dell Inspiron 6000 Laptop about 5 months ago with Win XP Home Edition.

Last week he came to me with problems which were all related to not protecting the laptop properly with Antivirus & Anti Spyware software, and also for visiting 'Untrustworthy' sites... if you know what I mean ;o)

The simplest thing to resolve all the issues was a fresh install which I did for him.

However, something isn't right, because everytime the monitor goes off after 15 minutes (powersaving), or whenever he closes the laptop lid and then brings it back out of 'Sleep Mode', the touchpads right and left mouse buttons won't click on anything on the desktop? the touchpad does work however because the cursor moves fine, and in the system tray, where the "Dell Alps Pointint-device Driver Control Panel" icon is, the buttons are highlighted when you press either ther left or right ones. Which means that the system knows that the buttons are being pressed, yet it just won't do click on anything on the screen!

I've also noticed that the only key that works on the Keyboard, is the "Windows" button too.

I've tried reinstalling the Dell Alps Touchpad Drivers, with no joy.

Any help would be much appreciated.

orko3001 · #2 (**permalink**) 02-17-2006, 06:32 PM

How did you reinstall?

The only thing i can think at the moment is that the virus is hiding in the ram and when you reinstall it is being carried over into the new setup... I think thats true...

anyway try a reinstall but this time to clear the ram unplug the laptop and take the battery out for about 60 seconds - then reinstall with f10 i think...

hope this helps...

undrop79 · #3 (**permalink**) 02-17-2006, 06:38 PM

I don't think it has anything to do with a virus being carried over. This wasn't an issue we were getting on the laptop prior to the reinstall.

The laptop's hardrive was formated and reinstalled from scratch.

ADAM Web Design · #4 (**permalink**) 02-17-2006, 08:29 PM

If you format, and it's a RAM-resident virus, it will still be there afterward.

Run a copy of AVG Free on it to be sure it's gone.

www.avgfree.com

Having said that, I haven't heard of something quite like your situation before, but I have heard of similar power setting issues in the BIOS. Have you checked in there to ensure that it's not a BIOS-related setting?

Keimos · #5 (**permalink**) 02-17-2006, 09:19 PM

Hi undrop79,

To me it sounds similar to a virus symptom or a problem with the bios.

Or as a Dell you have missed someting in the installation.

Either way I am not sure as this is , as above , something I have not come across.

My advice is to contact Dell technical support as it sounds like you have used there installation disks, which to me means that you need to read the installation instructions to find out exactly what is required.

A clean install from a MS disk after the hard drive has been formatted should mean an error free installation.

That leaves the BIOS to be checked.

A rescue disk or manufacturers disk (Dell, Hp, Fijitsu etc. you have to follow the instructions to the letter unless you know better to make sure that everything they deem necessary is in place.

Some things to think about as I do not know exactly what process you went through for the re-installation.

Keimos

oldmaid · #6 (**permalink**) 02-18-2006, 08:25 AM

Hello,

Don't know if this will help however i had some major problems with my dell also. We had it replaced, and I still got black screens everytime i shut it down. What we found out was that ever time i ran an update it started again. They said it was MS and MS said it was dell. I felt it was dell, they should insure it works with the programing they sell. Our solution was to take XP off and install 2000 it works now and i haven't had an issue.

Best of luck
T

southplatte · #7 (**permalink**) 02-19-2006, 03:26 AM

Make sure and install all the Dell updates from the Dell support site for that particluar model, as I have an Insp 1150 and have two updates I need for it if I reinstall (which I have had to do twice in the past year) to make the cpu run at the regular speed - this system sets the cpu speed to the lowest possible and it is due to power management, XP service pack 2 (which the system came with anyways).

The fun part is, if you trash the Dell system restore partition (since they don't send out the XP cd anymore) you do not have all the Dell proprietary add-ins that were added in during the OEM install of XP - these can only be retrieved from the Dell support site as they are directly related to the hardware from Dell and MS does not support it since it is OEM from Dell.

MS is never responsible for support for pre-installed Windows the manufacturer of the system assumes 100% of the support for the MS software for their warranty period that you recieve (90 days, 1 year etc).

If there are not any other patches from Dell (outside of the drivers for the touchpad) then I would not only format, but fdisk as well to entirely destroy all partition information. If the virus was a MBR (master boot record) resident virus, formatting will do nothing to it, you can run FDISK /MBR and rewrite the MBR without destroying all partition, but you can still wipe them out sometimes with it. After FDISK, shut down completely, no power, no battery etc. Then power up, go directly to the bios and make sure all is well there, then boot from the XP cd and you will have no choice but to format at this point. After the format and install do not install anything except for the Dell patches and drivers, then install your anti-virus (AVG free is awesome - I just used it today and it found 3 viruses in files about 2 years old that both Norton and McAffee have missed for that long!) do a full system scan. Next install all of the MS updates and then test it again.

Check for a BIOS update too, and make sure that all the Dell patches are installed - it is easy to miss one and it causes a headache for sure. And they are not just the drivers - they are usually a separate download.

MuNKyonline · #8 (**permalink**) 02-19-2006, 08:42 AM

If this problem wasnt there before you did a reinstall I would have thought that your problem is not a virus.

Don't bother to try and contact Dell support as it's not very good and they'll wonder why you didnt contact them before considering the laptop was only bought 5 months ago.

I think your best bet would be to go here and download everything that is relevant to the specification of the laptop. The problem could be releated to dell software or even the video drivers. Do not let XP find the drivers for you, make sure you install all the drivers from the Dell support site even if they appear to be the same as the ones that are already installed.

undrop79 · #9 (**permalink**) 02-19-2006, 01:55 PM

Thanks to everyone for all there advice!

I am of the same opinion of MuNKy in that if it wasnt an issue before, I can't see why it would be a problem now.

I will try to have a look at the Bios settings first, updating if necessary.

Failing that, I will have a look at reinstalling all the drivers from the Dell Website.

Failing that, I'll call Dell to ask their advice.

Failing that, I'll Fdisk and reinstall clearing the Ram.

Failing that... I'll shoot myself!

I'll post any results I get on here.

Thanks again to everyone...

colr · #10 (**permalink**) 02-20-2006, 03:54 AM

Adam Web Design - I find it distrurbing that you think a virus can reside in RAM after the machine has been rebooted. This is not possible and tbh shows a complete lack of understaning of how computers and there various memory components work.

RAM is volatile, i.e. it cannot be maintained across machine reboots, so to reside in RAM it must first come from somewhere else - the HD or network.

How did you format and reinnstall the OS? If you used the 'refresh disk' that came with the machine you shouldnt have a problem, if on the other hand you used a seperate Windows disk, then you are probably missing the correct drivers for your touchpad.

colr__

And yes Adam, I do know what I'm talking about, I have an accreditation in applied hacking.

undrop79 · #11 (**permalink**) 02-20-2006, 09:12 AM

I used a seperate WinXP Home Edition Disk which didn't include the drivers. Reason being, Dell have stopped shipping their PC's with the XP installation disk so that they can save themselves £0.12 and just use your hard drive to store the OEM files, as mentioned above by southplatte. After looking for half an hour on the Dell website as to how to reinstall the laptop without the "Re-install" disks, I decided to simply use a WinXP disk I had and use his XP Key to activate.

I did however download all the touchpad drivers recomended by Dell on the website, and installed from there, so I'm not sure why it's giving this issue.

I'll try removing and reinstalling the drivers however to see if this makes any differnce.

Thanks for the info!

scarytruth · #12 (**permalink**) 02-21-2006, 01:10 PM

ADAM Web Design wrote:

If you format, and it's a RAM-resident virus, it will still be there afterward.

Run a copy of AVG Free on it to be sure it's gone.

www.avgfree.com

Having said that, I haven't heard of something quite like your situation before, but I have heard of similar power setting issues in the BIOS. Have you checked in there to ensure that it's not a BIOS-related setting?

I agree that AVG is what you need as an anti-virus software. Here

I think your friend should just send it back to Dell. They do have a great warranty. If they can't fix the problem they will send him a new laptop.

undrop79 · #13 (**permalink**) 02-28-2006, 01:52 PM

Thanks to everyone for all the advice.

In the end I found an easier solution. I created a new "User Account" in Windows to test, and low and behold, the problem didn't occur with the new user.

So a simple case of transfering files across and deleting the old user account with the corrupt settings seems to have solved the problem.

Once again, thanks for all the tips, I'm sure they will be usefull in the future.