Laptop touchpad response badly when on power supply?

Question

I have HP pavilion 2200 series laptop with AMD processor, 1GB RAM, on board nvidia display card. It suddenly cause following problem:

When the adapter is unplugged, the touchpad works correctly and smoothly. But as soon as it is connected, the cursor response badly but when i use external usb mouse, It works fine.

I have check somewhat same question here, It tell me that it is somewhat regarding power supply issue, but it is little different then this one.

I have my original adapter but few days before i have given it to vendor for service due to slow speed Blue Screen issue with OS.

Does anyone know that how to troubleshoot this????

Solution 1

Sometimes in windows when you plug the power in, it changes the battery/perfomance mode to MINIMAL PORTABLE/LAPTOP, check that it does not do that.

In Control Panel double click Power Options. Here you can set timeouts for your monitor, system standby, and hibernate. Notebook computer users can specify an alternative power scheme that will take effect when the PC is running on battery power.

Another problem can be the system driver, make sure you have the original HP driver installed.. Usually the mouse pad from HP use the Synaptics Drivers, and that should reflect in the device manager.

If the problem persists it is most likely going to be hardware related, by the sounds of things this is an old notebook, and could just have some fault components.. Sorry.

Solution 2

Recently, I discovered touchpad malfunction (i.e. jumping, erratic, etc) in two of my laptops due to a power adapter. I checked the voltage with a multimeter, and it was in range. Also, I did the RF interference test explained in other posts, and found no interference caused by the power adapter.

Finally, I followed the pevious post to eliminate the capacitance charge touching the ground metal of the labtop, and the touchpad control improved a little. So I desided to have a better ground connection somewhere outside the laptop. I used a piece of thicker aluminum foil from a sealer of a ground coffe container. Then I managed to open one of the plastic covers at the bottom of the labtop, and secure the aluminum sheet with one screw inside the cover. Then I bend the aluminum sheet to have an exposed sueface outside. Finally, I secured the edges with etectric tape. This creates a permanent grouding surface that can be touched by hand or my lap.

I tested and it works great. The adapter does not afect the touchpad anymore. Just make sure the aluminum sheet only touches ground and no any other circutry connection.

Solution 3

I have the same problem on a Sony Vaio VGN-FZ140E that I bought in June 2007. The touchpad was intermittently becoming very non-responsive and could barely track my finger. After reading the above posts, I realized that I too had recently replaced the power adapter with a cheapo ($10) one from Amazon. I unplugged it and - presto - no more touchpad problems. The adapter I got works fine in charging the battery, but I did notice that per the specifications written on the brick, it puts out about .8 more amps than the original. I don't know if that has anything to do with the problem, but it was something that caught my eye because the Amazon page said it was a replacement for my exact laptop model. I did some further testing to see why the problem was intermittent for me. It turns out that when I plug the new adapter into a short, ungrounded extension cord that I occasionally use, the touchpad problem goes away.

Solution 4

"Just isolate the ground on the adapter" Followed as above. Only difference I did was taped the Earth terminal with masking tape & "Voila" It worked.

Solution 5

It's a ground loop problem with Synaptics touchpad (Dell Inspiron 14 in my case), maybe related to a bad power supply. I'll edit this reply if other PSU fix the problem.

As some other people say, a fast workaround is to touch notebook ground: Make a couple of loops around power plug with a clip and touch it while using the touchpad. You can also use any USB cable, just plug it and touch the other end, the metal shield (grounded). You can buy or make a DIY anti-static grounding wrist strap connected to the notebook ground (USB or clip/power plug), like Roreru's answer.

Reference

• power supply - Grounding a Laptop - Electrical Engineering Stack Exchange

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Comments

[TheCompWiz]

Honestly, this sounds like a design flaw from HP. You should probably bring it to them.

[Admin]

I just bought a new adaptor and had same problem. But only in my bedroom and not in living room. Then I realised my new adaptor is 3 pin, my old was 2 pin, so it IS a grounding issue. AND the reason it was working fine in my living room was because I was plugging the adaptor into a BELKIN surge protector, not the main plug socket. As soon as I did the same in my bedroom the problem went away. SO the simplest solution appears to be the cheapest and easiest. Just isolate the ground on the adaptor by plugging into a surge protector.

[Niranjan Singh]

i will try this and let you know.. well thanks for response.

[JinSnow]

could you please add a picture of it? ("secure the aluminum sheet with one screw inside the cover" + the final result)

[JinSnow]

"earth terminal", I'm not sure to understand what the "earth terminal means": you taped the the ground pin that goes to the wall outlet (which means it's not grounded anymore)? How does it work? (A picture of it would have been handy)

[JinSnow]

could you add a picture of your third pin isolated?