When your laptop touchpad stops working, it's like shooting fish in a barrel to go into a panic. If you can't movement your mouse cursor, it's hard to get much done on your figurer.

Just don't fret. Chances are that when your laptop mouse touchpad is not working, the fix is fairly simple. We'll walk yous through common troubleshooting steps to fix a trackpad that's not functional. Nearly of these tips utilise to Windows, but those on a Mac can use some of them likewise.

Is Your Whole Reckoner Frozen?

This sounds a bit silly, just it's worth double-checking. If your touchpad stops working as a one-off occurrence, your computer could be totally locked upwards. In that example, neither the touchpad nor the keyboard will work at all.

To test this on Windows, hit the Windows key to open the Start Carte du jour, then try Ctrl + Alt + Delete to open the Security screen. On a Mac, try pressing Cmd + Space to open Spotlight, which is an easy mode to encounter if your computer is responsive using the keyboard.

If these don't have any consequence, give your figurer a few moments to process whatever it's doing. After several minutes, if information technology's still frozen, y'all'll need to press and agree the concrete Power button to power it down.

Hopefully, this is a erstwhile consequence. Review common reasons Windows becomes unresponsive if you lot need to diagnose a deeper problem.

Check Your Keyboard'south Touchpad Key

One of the most common causes of a laptop touchpad not working is that you've accidentally disabled it with a key combination. Most laptops accept an Fn key that combines with the F1, F2, and other function keys to perform special operations.

Many of these, like changing the brightness or disabling wireless functionality, are useful. However, on many laptops, ane of these key combinations will disable the laptop touchpad. Since this is easy to hit by mistake, you might think your touchpad is broken if you toggle this without realizing it.

The exact fundamental depends on your laptop model (this volition differ amid Asus, HP, Lenovo, and other models), simply information technology ordinarily has a square trackpad-looking icon, sometimes with an X next to it. Some keyboards show a light on this key to let you know the mouse touchpad is turned off.

Beneath, you can see the F5 key on an HP Elitebook laptop, which turns the mouse pad off when combined with the Fn primal.

HP Laptop Disable Touchpad Key

Try pressing this key combo again and run across if your trackpad comes back to life.

Remove Whatsoever External Mice

Moving on, some other simple simply important troubleshooting step for a laptop touchpad that's not working is to attempt unplugging whatever USB mice you have connected to your laptop. You lot should also disconnect whatever Bluetooth mice in employ.

The reason for this is that some laptops (plus Windows and macOS themselves) have a feature that automatically disables the touchpad when yous connect an external mouse. This could be why your touchpad has stopped working. For best results when testing this, close down your organisation, unplug all connected non-essential devices and accessories, and then kick back up.

If y'all reboot and your mouse touchpad works, you've constitute your result. Depending on your computer, you might be able to tweak this setting to go along your trackpad agile even with a mouse plugged in (meet below for more on this).

Review Mouse Settings in Windows

You lot should side by side review the mouse settings inside Windows, in case something got messed up there. Caput to Settings > Devices > Touchpad kickoff.

Here, brand sure yous take the Touchpad slider enabled. At that place'due south also a box beneath this labeled Leave touchpad on when a mouse is continued, as mentioned in a higher place. While you're here, have a look at the other touchpad options to make sure your mouse input behaves as you await.

Windows 10 Touchpad Settings

If you can't resolve your problem from this menu, y'all might be able to admission touchpad-specific settings in another location. Go to Settings > Devices > Mouse and click the Additional mouse options link on the right side. If you don't see this, drag the Settings window horizontally until it appears.

In the resulting dialog box, you should see a tab on the right side labeled Device Settings, TouchPad, or something similar. Y'all can enable or disable the touchpad here; y'all might find that it's disabled if it wasn't working before. Attempt re-enabling information technology and see if that gets your touchpad working over again.

w10gestures nohardware synaptics

Dig Into the Device Managing director

If your laptop mouse pad is still not working, you'll have to spring into some deeper troubleshooting. Press Win + 10 (or right-click the Start push button) to open the Power User menu, then select Device Managing director.

Hither, expand the Mice and other pointing devices category. Y'all'll see multiple entries here if you've continued a mouse other than your touchpad. Double-click on i and look at its Location (on the General tab) to figure out what it is. If this says On USB Input Device or similar, it's not your touchpad.

Device Manager Manage Mice

One time you've found your mouse, effort right-clicking and choosing Disable device, so Enable device over again. Next, right-click the entry and select Update driver, then Search automatically for updated driver software. It's unlikely this will actually find a new driver to fix the consequence, merely sometimes information technology comes through.

If you run into any devices in this section that take a yellow exclamation betoken or red X by them, this indicates a driver consequence. See how to update Windows drivers for more than help.

Finally, it'south worth visiting your laptop manufacturer's website and downloading the latest driver. These often work better than the generic drivers Windows uses, and could thus clear up your issues.

If you have a manufacturer utility like Lenovo System Update installed, use that to check for updates. Otherwise, run a Google search for your laptop name plus "drivers" and wait for a Downloads or Updates section on your device's folio on the manufacturer'south website (don't utilize tertiary-party driver websites). Install the latest update to see if this fixes your touchpad problem.

Lenovo Driver Update

Yous may want to right-click the afflicted entry in the Device Manager and hit Uninstall device for a make clean slate before installing a new driver.

Expect for Touchpad Settings in the BIOS/UEFI

Your estimator's BIOS or UEFI controls many settings independent of any operating system. Information technology's possible that your touchpad is disabled in the BIOS, completely preventing Windows from accessing it.

You'll need to enter your PC'due south BIOS by pressing F2, Del, or a similar primal as before long as you turn information technology on. From at that place, look for an entry chosen Internal Pointing Device, Touchpad, Trackpad, or similar. This may be nether an Advanced heading.

Brand sure information technology's not disabled. If it is, turn information technology back on and Windows should then be able to recognize it. You might need to walk through some of the to a higher place steps subsequently re-enabling your touchpad in the BIOS.

Disable Tablet PC Services

Windows devices that have a touchscreen, such as 2-in-1 hybrids, accept a special service called Tablet PC Input Service. This controls the impact functionality, which includes disabling your trackpad when you're in tablet way.

There's a small-scale risk this could interfere with your trackpad in normal use. It'due south worth looking at if nil else has helped to this point. To review information technology, type services into the Get-go Card and launch the Services utility. Here, scroll to Tablet PC Input Service, correct-click information technology, and choose Finish.

If your touchpad works later y'all do this, you've found your consequence. To continue this service from loading every time you boot upwards, double-click it and set the Startup blazon to Manual to prevent it from running unnecessarily. Disabled will keep it from running at all, but this could cause erratic behavior when using your device in tablet fashion.

Mac Mouse Trackpad Non Working?

Nosotros've mainly looked at troubleshooting Windows trackpad bug here, but MacBook trackpads can run into trouble too. Thankfully, we take a full guide to troubleshooting MacBook trackpad problems, so take a look at that if you're a Mac user.

Touchpad Still Not Working? Yous May Have a Hardware Problem

The above steps should fix the majority of trackpad problems. However, there's a risk your mousepad is still non working.

In that case, you lot likely have a hardware upshot. Perhaps a cable is damaged or the touchpad has worn out. In those instances, you should have your computer to a repair store and become a professional opinion—or simply get-go using an external mouse.

You tin get a decent mouse for cheap to hold you over. Merely make sure you know what to look for when ownership one!

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Well-nigh The Author

Ben Stegner (1808 Manufactures Published)

Ben is the Editor in Chief at MakeUseOf. He left his IT job to write total-time in 2016 and has never looked back. He'due south been covering tech tutorials, video game recommendations, and more than as a professional writer for over viii years.

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