Acer Mousepad Not Working? Try These Fixes

It is normal for a touchpad to become slow and unresponsive, giving the impression that it is not working at all. This usually happens over long-term use, or within a short time because of a freezing system, malware, etc.

However, there are instances when your Acer mousepad does not work at all. You can experience this due to several software issues and a few hardware faults. The touchpad drivers may be faulty, or the configurations might be incorrect. And on rare occasions, the problem can be of its connector inside the laptop or the touchpad itself.

Fixes to Solve Acer Mousepad Not Working

Acer laptop provides a function key to enable or disable the touchpad. Press Fn + F7 or the respective button for your laptop to ensure that the touchpad is enabled.

If it does not do the job, move on to the fixes below.

Perform Clean Boot

Some applications, especially third-party ones, can interfere with the touchpad drivers as well as other software in your system. This can lead your system to freeze and you cannot move the mouse pointer at all.

Usually, the keyboard also stops working when this happens. You can try performing a clean boot of your PC to solve this problem.

1. Open Run and enter msconfig to open System Configuration.
2. Go to the Services tab.
3. Check the Hide all Microsoft services box and click Disable all.
   
4. Now. go to the Startup tab and click Open Task Manager.
5. Select the programs from the list individually and click Disable.
   
6. Restart your computer and see if the touchpad is working fine now.
7. If it does, enable the applications one by one from Task Manager to find the culprit.
8. Once the problematic application is found, uninstall it from your system.

The touchpad should function properly now. Sometimes, your system can be infected with malware, affecting your OS, system process, and services. You should run a complete virus scan on your PC using built-in Windows Defender or other trusted third-party antiviruses.

Enable the Touchpad in Control Panel

It is possible that the Touchpad is disabled inside the Control Panel itself. If it is so, then enabling the touchpad using the function key will have no effect on it.

1. Press Windows + ‘R’ to open Run.
2. Type control and hit Enter to open Control Panel.
3. Look for the Devices option.
   
4. Click on the Touchpad menu.
5. Switch the toggle bar to On.
   

Try using the touchpad now. However, if you are using an USB mouse, then you may have to enable yet another touchpad setting. This setting will keep the touchpad On along with the external mouse.

1. Go to the Touchpad menu in Settings again.
2. Check the Leave touchpad on when a mouse is connected option.
   

See if the error is still there.

Install or Update Touchpad Driver

Usually, laptops are able to run the Input hardware with generic drivers installed directly in the motherboard. But, sometimes, those drivers may fail to load the touchpad in your system.

You should install the specific driver for your touchpad on your PC using an external mouse.

1. Go to the Drivers and Manual page on Acer’s website.
2. Enter the serial number or model number of your laptop.
   
3. Look for the touchpad driver in the list and download it. For most Acer laptops, the drivers are Synaptics and Elantech-based.
   
4. Install the driver on your computer.
5. Restart the PC.

See if the touchpad starts working. If you already have the driver installed, then try updating it.

1. Press Windows + ‘X’ and select Device Manager.
2. Under Mice and other pointing devices, double-click on the HID-compliant mouse or Touchpad option.
3. Sometimes, both the touchpad and USB mouse are shown as HID-compliant. The touchpad should contain I2C HID Device in Location in the General tab. If it shows USB Input Device, select another HID-compliant mouse.
   
4. Go to the Drivers tab.
5. Click on Update Driver and choose Search automatically for drivers. You can also download the latest driver manually, following the same instructions as mentioned earlier.
   
6. If the driver was updated recently, click on Roll Back Driver.

Restart your system and see if updating the driver fixes the issue.

Install Prerequisite Drivers

There are other drivers, such as Serial I/O and Chipset drivers, that manages the communication and functionality of devices and controllers connected to the system. In fact, some Acer laptops do not require additional drivers and use the Serial I/O driver instead, for the built-in mouse and keyboard. So, it is necessary that you install these drivers in your system.

1. Open the Drivers and Manual page on the Acer website and search for your laptop.
2. Download Serial I/O Driver and Install it on your system.
3. Again, download and Install Chipset Drivers as well.
   
4. Restart your computer.

You should be able to use the touchpad now.

Change BIOS Setting

Acer laptops consist an option to change the Touchpad setting in BIOS. Some computers are known to malfunction when the Touchpad mode is set to Advanced. So, you can try switching the mode to fix the issue.

1. Restart your computer.
2. Press F2, F12, or Delete Key repeatedly to get to the BIOS page.
3. Go to the Main tab and find the Touchpad option.
4. If it is set to Advanced, then set it to Basic.
   
5. Press F10 to save the settings and exit from BIOS.
6. If the option is already on Basic, then try switching it first to Advanced, run the system, and change it back to Basic.

Check whether the touchpad is working now.

Change Power Management Settings

There are instances when the touchpad works for a while and does not respond after the system is idle for some time or wakes after sleep mode. If you are having such issues, then you will have to prevent the system from cutting off power to the touchpad during sleep.

Usually, the ability to change power settings for each device is available only in Linux OS. However, we still can do this in Windows for a specific device group.

1. Open Run and enter powercfg.cpl to open Power Options.
2. Click on Change Plan Settings at the right of your PC’s power plan.
   
3. Go to Change advanced power settings.
   
4. Find USB settings and expand USB selective suspend setting inside it.
5. Set it to Disabled.
6. Similarly, navigate to PCI Express and expand Link State Power Management.
7. Set it to Off or Moderate Power Savings.
   
8. Click OK to save the changes.

See if the problem still persists. The reason to switch off both PCI Express and USB select suspend is that the touchpad may receive power through the PCIe bus or USB, depending on the computer.

Update BIOS

Sometimes, the issue in the touchpad controller can be caused by faulty BIOS as well. To solve this, the manufacturer usually provides a BIOS update.

So, you should download the new BIOS update program from the Acer website and install the update on your system by running the executable file.

Reinsert the Touchpad Connector

If the touchpad connector is loose inside the laptop, then it may not be detected by the system. It can especially happen if you have recently disassembled your laptop and the connector was left out or loosened by mistake.

Furthermore, since the touchpad is mostly under the laptop battery, a swollen battery can cause the touchpad to malfunction as well.

So, you should check the status of the connector as well as the internal battery.

1. Turn your laptop over and remove all the screws. Look for the screws inside the rubber padding as well.
2. Remove the back cover and get to the motherboard.
3. Find the touchpad connector. It is usually located near the battery.
4. Take out the screws holding the battery.
   
5. Disconnect the battery connector and Remove the Battery.
   
6. Pull the lock to disconnect the touchpad connector.
7. Reinsert the cable back as well as the battery.
8. Assemble everything back to its place and start your computer.

Try using the touchpad to see if it’s working.

But, if the touchpad still shows no progress, it may be a fault in the hardware, and you should consult a professional laptop repair center to fix the problem.