Laptop mouse problems...

[kirennia]

Well last night I was doing a little work and luckily I have my laptop set-up right next to my desktop so I can look up documents while maintaining what I'm doing on my desktop with no problems at all.

Well I shut the screen off my laptop to go to the shops and when I came back, windows updates were about to shutdown my computer (good timing ehh? Bloody Vista...) so I went to click on remind me later but my mouse had stopped working when it was working perfectly before.

I was asked to go watch a film so was done with my computer anyway so just used hotkeys to cancel that and shutdown manually. Today I loaded up my machine but the mouse still didn't work after the updates completed. I figured it'd probably be a software problem so thought I'd load up ubuntu just to check but nope, still no movement on my mouse. Again using hotkeys I ended up in ubuntu anyway but found that not only did the keypad not work but none of the buttons did anyway. I plugged in a USB mouse and it did work but that's not really the point. I don't really have room with the way my desk is setup to put another mousepad down and it shouldn't just stop like this.

So, onto the point! Is there any possibility this could be a firmware problem or basically anything other then a hardware issue? Also, are mouse touchpads generally all setup (pad, buttons, scrollers) through one wire?

The strange thing is, it hadn't taken a knock, it was sitting idle with the screen off in my locked room (Don't trust people to lock the front door properly when they go out in student accomodation) but when I came back it simply didn't work. Overheating? Never had the laptop get anywhere close to hot, especially anywhere near the pad itself.

Very odd and there's something scratching in the back of my head about that automatic update...

Thanks in advance

 

[Kryten]

An annoying amount of trackpads on laptops are indeed connected very shoddily - some use one of those tiny ribbon cables - common in HP and Dells and very brittle, taking very little to damage them. Others use a small batch of 4-6 cables which aren't a great deal better.
Very odd that it "just went" like that, normally they need a reason like a smack or a pint of coffee poured down the keyboard, but otherwise very strange. Under warranty perchance? :|

 

[kirennia]

I bought a laptop in march then had the monitor and mousepad both go so got a new one, a later model to replace it as it was within the 1 month return and replace with store credit guarantee. It's within the year so all is good, I'm just once again worried about having to remove my software from the machine if they decide to throw a wobbly over my having Ubuntu on there. Luckily they didn't last time but as I'd already got a replacement before the old laptop was even sent off, I suppose there wasn't much they could do anyway. I'm guessing they can't really say anything about that as I have bought the thing but then I know certain other things you do to your own PC can void warranties.

It's been nigh on perfect since I bought it, kept up to date with security etc so whyon earth this has happened, especially seeing as it worked, then didn't after being in a locked room... I have no idea.

Don't think I'll be opening the thing up though even if I feel competent doing so... it's just asking for trouble with them should anythingelse go wrong before next april.

Cheers once again Kryten; it's an Acer by the way, the new model which was supposed to fix the inherant problems with the old series in monitor and mousepad issues... you've gotta laugh really

edit:Can't rep again, blah blah blah. Can someonelse do it?

 

[Kryten]

Just get it sent back again, if it's not right it's not right and you can't be expected to use a faulty machine. Acer are rather (in)famous for replacing dodgy components with even worse ones but that was mostly the cases with their flimsy hinges going back a couple of years. The replacement plastics set & strengthened hinges were more brittle than the originals!

And of course they can't moan at you for having Ubuntu on there; it's not responsible for killing your mouse. Perhaps it might be worth suggesting you remove the hard drive, caddy & plastics for it and they provide a warranty replacement missing those parts, leaving you able to swap the drive in and not be too inconvenienced.

Don't worry about the rep, plenty there as it is

 

[Rubric]

I have an acer laptop and very occasionally when i load it up the track pad thing is really eratic or the scroll button doesnt work. When it happens i restart and it is absolutely fine.


Weird