HP Touchpad Not Working
Is your HP touchpad no longer responsive? It can feel crippling to not be able to use your laptop when your main point of navigation – the cursor – is completely useless.
Don’t fret, there’s typically a quick solution to getting your laptop touchpad working again. We’ve listed the following steps to take in order of most common issues and easiest to solve.
Double Tap the Top Left Corner to Enable the HP Touchpad
Make sure that the laptop touchpad has not accidentally been turned off or disabled. You might have disabled your touchpad on accident, in which case you will need to check to make sure and if needed, enable the HP touchpad again.
The most common solution will be to double tap the top left corner of your touchpad. If you see a small glowing orange light, this usually indicates that the touchpad is not working and has been disabled.
Restart Your Computer
Your computer might just need a reboot. If you have not tried restarting your computer, do this now. If you do not have an external mouse, simply press the Ctrl, Alt & Delete keys simultaneously and tab until you highlight the power symbol. Hit enter, and tab up until you see restart.
(You can also do a hard restart by pressing the power button, and turning back on, but this is not usually recommended as it may result in data corruption in any files you have open.)
Check For Computer Driver Updates
It might be that you need to update the drivers for your touchpad. Check to see if you can use an external mouse.
If the external mouse is not working or you are not able to access one, follow the instructions below to navigate through your computer using the keyboard, very carefully.
Tip: If you’ve never updated your computer drivers before or you aren’t comfortable with making these changes, we recommended using a tool like Driver Support to do it for you! The software securely scans your computer for outdated drivers and updates them automatically – saving you the frustration and time of trying to fix the problem yourself.
- Press the Windows key and press R. The “Run” window should pop up.
- Type devmgmt.msc and press enter.
- Expand the “Mice and other pointing devices” window. If you do not have access to a mouse, press tab once and use the down arrow on your keypad. The “right arrow” will expand the device section.
- Press enter on the “Synaptics” device and tab over on the window until you open the “Drivers” tab.
- Select update driver and automatically update the driver.
- Once complete, restart your computer.
- Make sure to unplug the USB mouse or any other devices before restarting.
Manually Reinstall or Update your HP Drivers
If your computer was unable to automatically update, your files may be corrupted or you may need to download the drivers from the manufacturer directly.
It’s not recommended that you do this unless you are comfortable download and installing files onto your computer.
We recommend downloading and running Driver Support – the software will check your computer for all missing or corrupted files and update them for you. It will also keep your computer updated so you don’t run into this issue again.
If your external mouse is also not working, this indicates a driver issue as well, so it may be worth your time to allow a software program do the work.
You may also want to download the driver updates you need onto a flash drive from a different computer so that you’re not navigating the internet with your tab button.
If you are familiar with using computers and comfortable downloading and installing software, follow these steps.
- Press the Windows key and press R. The “Run” window should pop up.
- Type devmgmt.msc and press enter.
- Expand the “Mice and other pointing devices” window. If you do not have access to a mouse, press tab once and use the down arrow on your keypad. The “right arrow” will expand the device section.
- Press enter on the “Synaptics” device and tab over on the window until you open the “Drivers” tab.
Check The HP Touchpad Driver Settings
You might need to manually turn on the Touchpad under your settings. Press the Windows button and “I” at the same time and click (or tab) over to Devices > Touchpad.
Navigate to the Additional Settings option and open the Touchpad Settings box. From here, you can toggle the HP touchpad settings on or off.
Restart your computer to make sure the changes take place. If it is set to “on” and the touchpad still does not work, your device may be experiencing hardware issues or you want to use a tool like Driver Support to fix the issue for you.
