Hey Lately the touch pad on my player has not been working right. The 'up' and 'select' have not been functioning, but the rest of it is just fine. Is there a way I could replace the touch pad, or fix it somehow? Or is it toast?

SOLUTION: This was happening to us for over 6 months, lately its every few minutes, i just figured out its due to faulty front touch pad, if you open the unit and remove front face of the player, remove the single small ribbon wire that connects to front touch pad, leave the other little ribbon wire as this is for the remote control IR receiver, only the remote control can work with this now obviously.

Adel Heider,

You may want to first download the driver and install it into the system from the link below.
Inspiron 1545 Drivers Download Page
http://dell.to/14IpAJU

Erratic Pointer Movement

Here are some easy steps to take to determine the problem with a touch pad demonstrating erratic pointer movement:

1. Get the latest driver from support.dell.com - Most problems can be corrected with a simple driver download. This should always be one of the first steps when diagnosing any touch pad problem.
2. Check for hand and finger placement - The most common cause of random pointer movement is that the touch pad senses a finger or part of the hand near the surface of the device.
   • Have the customer attempt to use the touch pad normally but to pay attention to the location of his or her hands and fingers. Are any straying too close to the touch pad?
   • Adjust the Touch Sensitivity and TouchCheck settings in the Touch Pad Settings section of the Dell Touchpad Properties.
3. Try an external mouse - Does this problem happen with an external mouse attached?
   • The Device Select section of the Dell Touchpad Properties has options to enable or disable the touch pad or external mouse. Try several combinations of these settings.
   • If the problems only occur when the touch pad is enabled and do not occur any time a mouse or other external device is used, then the issue is related to the touch pad.
4. Check for mechanical problems - If the problem cannot be corrected by adjusting the settings mentioned above and only occurs with the touch pad enabled, then this could indicate a mechanical problem.
   • Press down on the palm rest on first the left side of the touch pad and then the right. See if the cursor starts moving on its own.
   • Run Dell 32-bit Diagnostics and try to recreate the problems there. If either of these situations occur, then replace the palm rest.

No Pointer Movement

No pointer movement from the touch pad (or track stick, if available) usually is the result of one of two things: The touch pad has been disabled in the driver interface, or the touch pad cable is damaged or disconnected. Follow the steps below to determine the problem.

1. Connect an external mouse - In either situation, an external mouse should still function. If it does not, try booting into Safe Mode and testing both devices again.
2. Enable the touch pad in the driver settings - Using the external mouse (or key strokes if no mouse is available), go into the Dell Touchpad Properties. Go to the Device Select section and enable the touch pad. If already enabled, get the latest driver from support.dell.com.
3. Test the device in Dell 32-bit Diagnostics - To eliminate a potential software problem, run the Dell 32-bit Diagnostics and test the device here.
4. Check for mechanical problems - As a last resort, press down on the palm rest where the touch pad connector is located on the system board. If the pointer reacts in some way, then the cable may just need to be reseated. Otherwise, replace the palm rest.

Thank You,
Dell-Jesse L
Dell Social Media and Communities

To access Mouse Properties, select Start - Control Panel - Hardware and Sound -Mouse.

Use Mouse Properties in Windows to customize settings for pointing devices, such as button configuration, click speed, and pointer options.

First, check if the device came with an installation disk. This disk is the driver for your device. Try to reinstall the driver first. If that didn't help, contact the manufacturer and have them upgrade the firmware of your device because there could be a possibility that the program got corrupted or something.

If the same problem occur, then that's the time you will go to check the physical parts of it.

Have a great day!

Make sure the mouse pad is enabled. Check the manual or web site for your model. Generally, the mouse pad (and other functions) can be accessed by pressing the Fn key + a specific F_ key (1-12).

Sometimes this device or others can accidentally be disabled.

The same thing happened to mine where just the touch pad doesn't work. It happened after a few monthes and to one of my friends as well; hers started working a day or two after and I had left mine alone once it stopped working but I went back to mine after she mentioned hers started working again and mine worked again too. I know that isn't much help because I don't know what fixed it but try just leaving it off for a few days and then going back to it.

My Vaio touchpad started behaving strange. I could move the curser, but no response on left or right click or double tap. Also found that in any search field or user name fields, the computer would just type endless 9's. My wireless mouse could operate the left and right click buttons, but not move the curser. A suggestion to get the mousepad operating again was to touch any key on the keyboard. This allowed it to function again. Final solution was to remove the battery, then hold down the start key for about a minute, reinsert the battery and start it up. It seems to have resolved the problem. I have a 3 month only laptop with Windows 7 already installed. Hope this helps.

Will your laptop work properly with an external mouse? If so, check your touchpad settings in "Control Panel" by selecting "Mouse". Here you can reassign your Buttons. Try setting your Right Button function to "Double Click". If the "Double Click" function works on your Right Button then chances are you have a problem with your Touchpad Assembly which means it will have to be replaced. Dell refers to it as a "Palmrest" which they will replace if still under warranty.

config for touch pad is in control panel,mouse.

Next time you try scrolling on the touch pad, also push down (really) hard on the touch pad(kind of like you're squeezing the player). Keep doing this, and you may get it working. I've dropped mine a few times, and this push/squeeze/scroll seemed to work.