UltraNav Trackpoint/Touchpad weirdness

[calkenneth]

I have a Lenovo T420s running Windows 7 64 bit. I bought it in May 2011 so it came with the Touchpad/Trackpoint driver version 15.2.14.0 (6hgx35ww.zip), which is the one also known for its massive memory leak.

In any case, with that driver I am able to use the Trackpoint to navigate somewhere on the screen and immediately use the Touchpad if necessary. I do that a lot - I use the Trackpoint to quickly get somewhere on the screen, and then switch to the Touchpad for finer navigation (e.g. to look for something in Explorer, click on a link somewhere, etc).

Every version since that version has not worked the same. I am now using 15.3.16.1 which doesn't have any memory leaks. As soon as I touch the Trackpoint, the Touchpad becomes unresponsive to touch for about 1.5 seconds.

I uninstalled all of the UltraNav drivers on the system just to see how the system would behave with the default Windows mouse drivers. It behaved as it should, that is, as soon as a finger is put on the Touchpad, it responds and doesn't wait.

Try it. Put your left pointer finger on the Trackpoint and move the mouse around. Right as you lift your finger, use your right pointer finger on the Touchpad and see if it responds. It doesn't - you have to lift your finger and put it down again for it to register your touch. Previously it would register your finger touch on the Touchpad right away.

I'm almost tempted to switch back and deal with the memory leaks! It makes such a difference with speed of navigation.

Anyone else have a similar experience?

Update: More info - if you turn Palm Check all the way to minimum, it behaves as it should... But then you run the risk of constantly hitting the touchpad by mistake when you type!

[steje]

I'm having a similar problem... and it's VERY irritating. I just got a T410 Thinkpad running Win7 x64 from work after my trusty old T61 with WinXP died.
I've found the same unresponsive Touchpad after using either the Trackpoint OR the mouse buttons positioned ABOVE the Touchpad (for instance, if I want to click the left mouse button in order to drag select some files using the Touchpad). If I use the mouse buttons positioned BELOW the Touchpad, I don't have the issue.

Also, the unresponsiveness isn't really for a period of time (i.e. 1.5 seconds) so much as I have to remove my finger off the Touchpad and then press it again - THEN it responds.

This is very frustrating - and I'm having severe connection instability with the Intel Centrino 6200 Wireless card in the T410 as well... so color me unimpressed and severely dissapointed with this "upgrade". Sure the T410 system has more oomph than the the old T61 - but I miss my old system alot right now.

[calkenneth]

I'm having a similar problem... and it's VERY irritating. I just got a T410 Thinkpad running Win7 x64 from work after my trusty old T61 with WinXP died.
I've found the same unresponsive Touchpad after using either the Trackpoint OR the mouse buttons positioned ABOVE the Touchpad (for instance, if I want to click the left mouse button in order to drag select some files using the Touchpad). If I use the mouse buttons positioned BELOW the Touchpad, I don't have the issue.

Also, the unresponsiveness isn't really for a period of time (i.e. 1.5 seconds) so much as I have to remove my finger off the Touchpad and then press it again - THEN it responds.

This is very frustrating - and I'm having severe connection instability with the Intel Centrino 6200 Wireless card in the T410 as well... so color me unimpressed and severely dissapointed with this "upgrade". Sure the T410 system has more oomph than the the old T61 - but I miss my old system alot right now.

I found that if you set the palm check to the minimum (far left), the problem goes away. But that really isn't an acceptable solution because now my palm is hitting the pad all the time and causing the cursor to jump all over the screen when I type! (The worst is when it jumps and highlights some text, and then since you're typing, you end up overwriting everything in that section of the document/page!)

[calkenneth]

JameZ, a Lenovo employee who keeps an eye out in the forums, has confirmed this problem and forwarded it to engineering. I hope we find a suitable solution soon!

[jisler]

You're right. This seems to be universal. I have a brand new T420s (purchased direct earlier this month) and get the same behavior. I'm also suffering from a slightly different trackpad-related issue. It seems that as soon as I depress any input key (not a modifier key such as cntl, alt, or shift) on the built-in keyboard, the trackpad will no longer move the pointer. This is a real problem since I spend most of my time working in Adobe CS applications, all of which critical use of both the Hand Tool and the Magnifier - which require pressing the spacebar (or space bar + cntl), combined with mouse movement to operate. These keyboard shortcuts are critical to efficient use of CS.

By the way, there's no such limitation using add-on keyboard and mouse, only with those that are on the laptop. I can move the pointer while holding the built in spacebar if I use an external mouse (or tablet) and I can move the pointer with the built-in trackpad while I hold the spacebar on an external keyboard.

Does anyone know how to overcome this limitation?

[achat_2]

Just to confirm that the very same problem even affects my X201s, with the last release of the Lenovo driver installed on Wndows 7 64 bit.

Additionally the button of the trackpoint of a NMB keyboard are loud to craziness (on my T41p are completely mute) and a Chicony keyboard has mute and perfect trackpoint buttons, but absolutely loud keys.

Nice to see the quality of those machine and their components seems to decrease over time instead to improve.

A.

[makaveli559m]

I upgraded to 15.3.27.1 on my T510 and now the mouse acts funny like sometimes double clicking on its own when I hover over something

[Shadowku]

I bought my T410 late December of 2010 and I have never updated the driver (using 15.0.18.0) and I just noticed the issue (I don't use the trackpad). For me there's about a 1.5 second delay when i switch from trackpoint to trackpad but I don't seem to have any issues with keyboard input stalling or delaying the trackpad.

I never had an older Thinkpad, did older versions have this problem as well? Rather were there any that didn't have it?

[calkenneth]

I bought my T410 late December of 2010 and I have never updated the driver (using 15.0.18.0) and I just noticed the issue (I don't use the trackpad). For me there's about a 1.5 second delay when i switch from trackpoint to trackpad but I don't seem to have any issues with keyboard input stalling or delaying the trackpad.

I never had an older Thinkpad, did older versions have this problem as well? Rather were there any that didn't have it?

Using the keyboard won't delay the trackpad, but using the trackpoint will.

The Lenovo technical support team on their forums forwarded this issue to engineering. Engineering responded with, "It's a feature, not a bug." They actually BUILT this delay into the driver.

To deal with this, I've reinstalled the older version of the driver (15.2.14.0). To ensure that the memory leaks don't drag down my computer, I keep Process Lasso in the background and it restarts the syntpenh.exe file whenever it gets out of hand. Best of both worlds, I guess.