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Need to Find the ELAN TouchPad Driver that works with a 2017 era Lenovo P51 ThinkPad / Win 10 Pro

Anonymous
2023-01-04T04:18:42+00:00

After many frustrating hours of trouble shooting / searching over the holidays, thought I’d reach out to the Windows 10 Brain Trust for some help.

HISTORY

Years in the IT world, used multiple models of IBM, now Lenovo ThinkPad’s since the ‘90’s.

Always keep hardware & software updates current, always protected with anti-virus / anti-malware, constantly making backups, etc, etc.

After using a good 2017 Lenovo P51 ThinkPad for 3-4 years, I treated myself to a bigger / faster P52 ThinkPad and it’s been solid as a rock as well.

My grown daughter needed a bigger / better laptop and decided to give her the P51 which I no longer use...still works perfectly, etc.

SITUATION

The biggest ThinkPad feature to me has always been the “TrackPoint” in the middle of the keyboard.  Never had any interest in using the “Touchpad” and as soon as I realized I was accidentally touching it causing problems, I just turned it off, forgot about it.

But…my Daughter likes / uses ‘Touchpads’ and in turning it back on I found it no longer worked.  Apparently over the years, the constant flow of driver updates ultimately rendered the touchpad on the older P51 inoperative, don’t know.
I’ve tried all sorts of additional Touchpad driver updates but still couldn’t get it to work

Never could find the original Touchpad Driver that made the 2017 P51 Touchpad work.

Then decided to try the P51 USB Windows 10 Recovery package from Lenovo and after loading the USB Recovery software was pleased to see the Touchpad worked fine.
BUT, after rebuilding the rest of the P51 software & updates, the Touchpad no longer worked.

Does anyone happen to know what or where the original 2017 era P51 ThinkPad ELAN Touchpad Driver is?
And for sure it’s embedded in the Windows 10 Pro USB Recovery package I got from Lenovo, but I don’t know what or where it’s located of if I could extract it if I did.

Long story to explain as best I could…and probably a long shot asking...but hoping for some magic help from the Community to get a copy of the old P51 Thinkpad ELAN Touchpad Driver.

Thanks all…

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows update

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-01-04T05:04:47+00:00

    Hello, I'm Greg, here to help you with this.

    Go here, choose Change Model and put in the Serial number to get the exact drivers under Drivers > Manual Update, or scan it using the Auto Scan function: https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/ng/en/products/lap...

    All the P51 models I find there have Synaptics touchpad, so I would try those if you're not absolutely sure it's Elan. But refine the product with Serial or full Model number first.

    Then here are all other fixes for touchpad in case they're needed:

    1. Update the Touchpad driver from the PC maker's Support Downloads web page, using the full model number, Serial Number or Dell Service Tag on sticker. Compare the latest drivers available for download with the ones presently installed in Device Manager reached by right clicking the Start Menu. Make sure you also have the latest BIOS or UEFI firmware, Chipset, Display (Video), Sound, USB3, Bluetooth, Network and all other drivers, or else download and install the latest now.
    2. If that doesn't help then enter Device Manager reached by right clicking the Start button, go to Mice > Touchpad and then Driver tab. Choose Update Driver, then Automatic to see if it gets a better driver that resolves the problem. If not try Update Driver > Browse > Let Me Pick to try all previously installed drivers.

    If the touchpad doesn't show up, from Device Manager Action tab choose Scan for Hardware changes.

    1. If that doesn't work then try uninstalling driver, Restart PC using keyboard to Ctrl Alt Del, on blue screen tab to Power Icon in bottom right, press Enter, arrow down to Restart, press Enter to restart to reinstall the driver.
    2. Run the hardware troubleshooter at Settings > Update & Security > Troubleshoot. > Additional Troubleshooters.
    3. Next try the troubleshooting steps here Windows 10 touchpad not working:

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-in/help/402786...

    https://techcult.com/fix-touchpad-is-not-workin...

    https://www.businessinsider.com/touchpad-not-wo...

    https://helpdeskgeek.com/help-desk/fix-touchpad...

    https://www.lifewire.com/fix-touchpad-not-worki...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWtDnXVCAjs

    1. Go to Settings > Devices > Touchpad to go over the Settings. Then choose Additional Settings which opens the Mouse properties box. The Touchpad software installs a tab onto it - usually the last one - that should have more settings to check, including a checkbox to Disable Touchpad when USB pointing device is attached. This prevents palm drag from causing the cursor to jump

    I hope this helps. Feel free to ask back any questions and let us know how it goes. I will keep working with you until it's resolved.

    ________________________________________________________

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-01-04T23:14:09+00:00

    Those original driver disks/media are dated from the time they're released. We need to get the latest drivers from the PC maker's Support Downloads web page as I wrote out in detail with provided link two posts back. Can you try that now? I am standing by here to help.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-01-04T22:45:00+00:00

    Lenovo USB Windows Recovery.....Mentioned it it my original post...

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-01-04T22:12:41+00:00

    What about the results of the driver steps I wrote out in the first part of my post above? I gave specific steps to try to find the touchpad driver, nothing about a recovery software package. Where did that come from?

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-01-04T19:02:08+00:00

    Thanks Greg...

    Pretty much went through all the generic Fix TouchPad activities over the past several days.

    After booting from the P51 Lenovo Thinkpad USB Windows 10 Recovery package, the TouchPad started working fine again until I downloaded / installed all the default updates that had accumulated over the past few years.

    And the Rollback option for each of the currently installed TouchPad drivers is greyed out.

    Really hoping I could find out exactly which TouchPad Driver is included in the Lenovo P51 Windows 10 USB Recovery software package I downloaded from Lenovo, in hopes of being able to uninstall the current set of TouchPad drivers and just install the one.

    Or, maybe the USB Recovery package is letting the TouchPad work because something else in regular Windows updates is not letting the TouchPad work...no idea.

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