Today I got a complaint from my gf, "Since you installed XFree86 on FreeBSD, my Touchpad doesn't work anymore in XP". Hm...Well I was quite sure that this wasn't the real cause, so installed half a dozen different drivers. Downgraded the last Windows Hotfixes, digged through the registry. But nothing happend, in FreeBSD the Touchpad works fine, in Windows XP it stops working a few seconds after login. Well, after a few hours digging through Google, the Acer and the Synaptics homepage, while the Laptop was performing it's 100. restart, I suddenly saw the magic key. Fn + F7. A green message appeared: "Touchpad activated". And everything worked. I must have pressed this key in FreeBSD, where no green Message appears on the screen (Fn + F6 and Fn + F5 are controlling the LCD screen) and nothing happens, because FreeBSD doesn't use the proprietary Synaptics driver. To my defense I can say that the Touchpad control program doesn't tell me if the touchpad is activated or not. But i am still angry about wasting half of the Saturday with Windows XP.
XP stupidity award
Categories:
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: XP stupidity award.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://arved.priv.at/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/150
18 Comments
Leave a comment
Search
Monthly Archives
- November 2010 (1)
- May 2010 (1)
- February 2010 (1)
- October 2009 (1)
- August 2009 (1)
- June 2009 (2)
- May 2009 (1)
- March 2009 (2)
- January 2009 (1)
- December 2008 (1)
- October 2008 (1)
- August 2008 (5)
- July 2008 (3)
- June 2008 (2)
- May 2008 (1)
- April 2008 (2)
- March 2008 (2)
- February 2008 (1)
- January 2008 (3)
- December 2007 (9)
- October 2007 (2)
- September 2007 (2)
- August 2007 (3)
- July 2007 (1)
- June 2007 (4)
- May 2007 (4)
- March 2007 (5)
- February 2007 (1)
- January 2007 (6)
- December 2006 (3)
- November 2006 (3)
- October 2006 (6)
- September 2006 (4)
- August 2006 (2)
- July 2006 (4)
- June 2006 (3)
- May 2006 (3)
- April 2006 (4)
- March 2006 (3)
- February 2006 (6)
- January 2006 (7)
- December 2005 (7)
- November 2005 (12)
- October 2005 (12)
- September 2005 (9)
- August 2005 (13)
- July 2005 (8)
- June 2005 (7)
- May 2005 (15)
- April 2005 (9)
- March 2005 (7)
- February 2005 (9)
- January 2005 (11)
- December 2004 (15)
- November 2004 (17)
- October 2004 (23)
- September 2004 (12)
- August 2004 (21)
- July 2004 (30)
- June 2004 (15)
- May 2004 (26)
- April 2004 (16)
- March 2004 (20)
- February 2004 (34)
- January 2004 (17)
- December 2003 (39)
- November 2003 (31)
- October 2003 (14)
- September 2003 (9)
- August 2003 (21)
About this Entry
This page contains a single entry by arved published on February 21, 2004 7:32 PM.
Mentoring was the previous entry in this blog.
From Gustav Klimt to Paul Klee is the next entry in this blog.
Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.
Recent Comments
- Warner commented on XP stupidity award: I reinstal
- Alan commented on XP stupidity award: I did the
- nass3576 commented on XP stupidity award: Another th
- Sethop commented on XP stupidity award: Thank good
- Rene O) commented on XP stupidity award: Wow! this
- jude commented on XP stupidity award: That got m
- wi11y_s commented on XP stupidity award: After few
- wi11y_s commented on XP stupidity award: Thanks!
- Holroy commented on XP stupidity award: Finally...
- arved commented on XP stupidity award: Well there
Thanks for this info. I am not sure how the touchpad got turned off but it was driving me crazy not being able to figure it out. Thanks for the tip.
It actually persists - if you don't twig to the Fn-F7 thing - if you use the recovery CD to "restore" the system. So, a big thanks for documenting this.
You rule.
I was about to throw my laptop out of the window after working on this problem for 5 hours.
Thankyouthankyouthankyou.
It's pretty dumb that the software doesn't tell you it's locked/active.
Argh! I have just been up half the night, taking my Acer 2702 to pieces, thinking that a cable had come loose that had made the mousepad stop working! Finally I find this page and realise that its all because of me pressing fn-F7. At least your page has saved me trying to send the laptop back as faulty...
Thank you!
Thanks! How nice!
This is the first time in my life that I was able to find the beautiful and easy solution for a terrible problem dirctly by googling and BEFORE "wasting half of the Saturday with Windows XP" (which would have happened otherwise) :o)
Have you found some way to enable double clicking (tapping) under FreeBSD?
No, because I don't like this feature.
Did you try enabling the Synaptics extensions?
i just installed freebsd, can you please tell me which synaptics extension did you use? i'm using freebsd version 5.4.. and the touchpad works fine, but the scrolling on the touchpad doesn't work for some reason.. thanks alot :D
Well there is a tunable called hw.psm.synaptics_support which fixed a broken Synaptics touchpad for me, but i don't know if it supports scrolling.
Maybe ask on the freebsd-mobile Mailinglist or philip@ who did the code.
Finally... I've been troubled by this for some hours now! I've reinstalled an Acer laptop, and touchpad worked until I was logged in. Have tried reinstalled drivers, uninstalling, and searched the web for another hour or two. And now I finally found arved solution. And now it works. Thanks a lot!!
Thanks!
After few hour googling I finally found your page, Thanks!
That got me too. But the touchpad got disabled by the USB mouse install. I never pressed anything, anyway thats my story and I'm stciking to it! By the way I got an acer laptop too. :) Ferrari 3200 its awesome! Thanks for helping me sort this out.
jude
Wow! this dates bake to 2004, nice. Well I was lucky to have a USB mouse while this problemo came up. Many thank to the bright guy who found this out. I'm using an ACER TravelMate 4202WLMI , and just updated back and forth with the synaptics driver for the past 6 months.. Yee Haw..
Happy holidays.
Rene
Thank goodness I found this page before I went through the whole "how do I make a claim on the extended warranty" shannaagins and/or took my laptop to pieces. Cheers!
Another thank you, it was Fn + F5 on my laptop, but could not find this documented anywhere. Systematically trying all of the Fn combinations helped after having tried reinstalling, falling back and everything.
Agree with everyone that the state should be indicated somewhere.
I did the whole uninstall/reinstall thing on my Acer Aspire 1670 including pulling the machine apart to look for broken connections. Looking at other posts Acers seem prone to this problem!
I reinstalled twice and then I figured it must be a hardware problem. Almost a shame that it wasn't... I was already shopping around for a new laptop, just when I saw your page.