T500 failed touchpad buttons

[MikalE]

What causes the touchpad buttons to fail all at once?

The two lower buttons attached to the palm rest are not working correctly. The right button will not open the menu box, won't highlight text, or do anything else it was designed to do.

The left button sometimes opens the menu box, but at that time will not allow a click on a link, icon, or anything else.

If I am able to click on an icon on the desktop or a selection in the Start Menu using the left button, the small window that displays "Open" appears, so I cannot directly double click on an icon and have it open without moving over to the small window box to select open.

The mouse has been checked to be certain the buttons have not been switched.

In addition, the two buttons attached to the keyboard ahead of the touchpad do nothing and they are enabled in the menu selections.

If after opening the Task Manager, the buttons return to normal for a few clicks and then this problem repeats itself. Just opening the Task manager resets this, nothing in the Task manager is actually clicked.

Plugging in a USB mouse fixes all problems, so it would appear to be a hardware or firmware problem. I would not think that these separate components would all fail at once though. The keyboard acts normally in all aspects.

Has my keyboard failed along with the palmrest? Opinions?

[dr_st]

It has been proven countless times that a defective touchpad causes the trackpoint to misbehave as well. Disconnect the touchpad cable (which will disable it and the bottom two buttons), then check if the trackpoint buttons (under keyboard) behave normally.

[MikalE]

I will try that when I get home tonight. Thanks.

[MikalE]

I removed the palmrest and unplugged the trackpoint. While it allowed to left click on links and navigate around a web page, it would still not do anything with the right click button.

The dialog box(s) still will not open. In addition to that, now, with the trackpad plugged in or not, the mouse cursor creeps slowly to the upper right of the display.

It is controllable with the trackpad, the trackpoint, and an external wireless or wired mouse, but I have no explanation for this happening either.

I replaced the palmrest with a known good unit removed from another T500 because the plastic has a few minor cracks, but the issues remain with no explanation.

Has this T500's time finally come? Should I retire it or continue trying to find out why it is doing this?

[MikalE]

The creeping mouse cursor was solved with a reboot.

The left button will now open a Start menu selection without the dialog box opening to select 'Open'. Nothing on the right buttons though. The external mouse will operate these as normal though.

Now after trying two different palmrests, what else could be causing this? I've already reloaded the drivers several times with no change.

[RealBlackStuff]

Try a T60/T61 keyboard in it (preferably NMB).
They fit/work, are sturdier and have better quality.