Keyboards & Touchpads

[#1]

Jim..much appreciated updater informationon this issue.

For those wondering about Jim's reference to 'cut-in period/shipping':  From a business perspective consult with the vendor, order direct, thus latest production series is sent.  Retailers often wait till their distributor stock is exhausted before a major re-order/closeout line.  Since no recall this is what occurs.  You can also ask the retailer to show you a boxed unit and check its ship date[Best Buy has tags for Inventory Control purposes attached]. Hope that helps to some degree.

[#2]

Hey everyone,

I figured I should give an update on my touchpad situation. For reference, I'm using the NB205 with Windows 7 (TechNet). Aero is disabled. I do not have any alps drivers installed. I am using a third-party program, Touchfreeze 1.0, to guard against palm swipes while typing.

I did not like the friction of the touchpad, so I scrubbed it with some liquid glass car wax. I think a thin layer of paint came off while I was doing this.

I've been using this "semi-glossy" touchpad for a week so far, and I am more comfortable with it now. Maybe my sweat and skin oil is contributing to this (eeeeeewww). In rare cases with high CPU usage, the cursor movement might be less than 30 fps for a split-second, but can attest that I am not experiencing any lag. For me, the lag returns if I re-install the Alps drivers.

I should add that the sensitivity of the touchpad remains markedly decreased at the left and right edges, so -- as other posters have mentioned -- I am still avoiding the edges of the touchpad.

If only I had touchpad scrolling without the Alps driver, I would be really happy.

[#3]

Further to my earlier post, I reinstalled the driver and then adjusted the settings as advised. On delving deeper into the advanced settings I found a browser area which is configurable. This allows for moving back and forward between web pages. I reduced the area considerably and think that this has resolved one of the major problems of flicking among web pages. As I was moving th cursor across the page I was straying into this zone.

I have not had the stuttering problem only a touch pad whis sensitive compared to my other machines. The proximity of the pad to the edge of the machine exaerbates the problem requiring a change in technique.

Anyone else care to elaborate?

Morris

[#4]

hezzhezz statement of using a harsh chemical is not recommended for the plastic coated shell of his netbook. It can actually void the warranty if manufacturer decides to invoke such. BTW: Touchfreeze has not be updated to relate to Win7.  Like in a car when the engine gets hot the hood gets real hot and heat does not dissipate evenly.

[#5]

Hi everyone,

First of all, thanks to Jim for providing such on-the-ball support. It's a refreshing thing to see.

Second, I wanted to share a step I took to make my NB200's Alps touchpad more bearable. Sorry if this is already common knowledge. Go to the Mouse control panel, and click on the Hardware tab. find the Alps Pointing-device and click on Properties. Hopefully you'll see an Advanced Settings tab, containing things like Wheel Detection and Input Buffer Length. First off, turn the sample rate up as high as it will go -- mine was set to 60 out of the box, which would've felt slow to me back in the Windows 95 era. Then -- and this is the important one -- uncheck Fast Initialization. There's not a lot of documentation floating around to explain what this option actually does (outside of vague claims that it speeds up boot times), but whenever my machine has this box checked the touchpad is a flaky nightmare. Uncheck it, reboot, and you'll see vast improvements. I certainly did. What was almost a deal-breaker for me turned into a moderately decent touchpad. It's really too bad Toshiba chose to make it so wonderfully large and then skimp on the touchpad manufacturer -- Synaptics is at the top of the pile for a reason, and Alps seems so woefully 20th century.

Unfortunately, there is no equivalent fix for Linux that I've been able to find so far, so this might be a deal-breaker for me after all. After getting used to a quick and nimble touchpad in XP, booting into Linux (my preferred OS) and having my touchpad's response time drop back down to almost half a second is unreasonable, so I might be doing like many and (sigh) going the 1005HA route. I find this a bit depressing, because outside of the touchpad, the crappy speaker and the so-so WiFi adapter, this might be one of the finest netbooks ever made.

PM me for more information or if you have any questions.

Regards,

Nick

[#6]

I recently purchased an NB205-312, and I am having the unresponsive touchpad problem as well.  it also stutters, not frequently, but there certainly is a huge difference when putting in a USB mouse.  Why can't the touchpad be like the external mouse???

If there is no fix to this, I will return it for a different netbook.

[#7]

Ok, I just noticed something.  My touchpad would briefly stutter everytime the fan starts ramping up.  As long as there's nothing making the fan go, my mouse will stay smooth.  Now if only something can be done about the intermittent stalling (brief unresponsiveness, at times), this would be good.

This a solution still being looked into?

[#8]

HI Tapsonthefloor,

Tried your suggestion of UNCHECKING the fast initialization box under advanced setting on the alps pointing device properties.  1) yes this did make a huge difference in that the touchpad acts just like the touchpad on my normal laptop.  However 2) you lose the ability to change any of the setting on the touchpad-under the advanced features- that used to be there.  The advanced button is no longer there on the mouse properties options.

Is this a problem?  Not for me.  Scrolling and being able to go forward or back a webpage is not all that big a deal.  Now my mouse is more responsive without me having to be careful to NOT touch it.  Will have to play with it some more.  But hey, thanks for this option.

[#9]

toshuser99..You ensured there is no obstruction of air flow near the fan/exhaust port area, right?  Also check the HDD detection setting to ensure unit is level.  Check external devices and remove to observe if stalling still occurs.  Return to retailer if within their return policy period for exchange as an option.