E3-111 Touchpad recognised only as a mouse

zumtotal · September 2014

I have a brand new E3-111 which came with Windows 8.1 64 bit installed. The SNID is 4****. I have applied all official Windows updates.

The basic touchpad works (move pointer, left click, right click, tap to click) but there is no way to enable/adjust the advanced settings (gestures, edge scrolling, edge gestures etc.) because in Device Manager it is recognised only as a normal HID-compliant two-button mouse:

device manager.jpg

In Control Panel Touchpad is not listed, only Mouse:

The mouse driver:

mouse driver.jpg

I used the SNID 4***** to correctly identify my product on the Acer support site http://www.acer.co.uk/ac/en/GB/content/drivers

It shows:

TouchPad

Synaptics

Touchpad Driver

18.1.2.1

564.6 KB

2014/04/25

I downloaded the driver and installed it. I uninstalled the mouse in Device manager and restarted the laptop. No change.

I noticed that the driver for the Synaptics HID device under Human Interface Devices is correct:

synaptics driver.jpg

Then I updated the BIOS to 1.19 and restarted. No change.

I uninstalled the Mouse and the HID-complaint Touchpad and the Synaptics HID Device in Device Manager and restarted. No change.

I tried installing generic Synaptics drivers from http://www.synaptics.com/en/drivers.php, version 17.0.19. The install failed, no error code given.

I don't know what else to try to get Windows to recognise my touchpad properly and allow me to access the full feature settings.

[edited for privacy]

hossindz · September 2014

same problem help me please Smiley Sad

islandhopper · September 2014

I'm having the same problem exactly as described. Anyone have any ideas? I even tried to install full feature driver software from the synaptics site itself but it fails to install.

BearPaw · September 2014

I'm beginning to think that the Acer E3 111 series are defective as my unit had lots of hardware defects and freezing issues not to mention BSOD issues.

islandhopper · September 2014

@BearPaw, sorry to hear that; so far so good on my machine...<knock on wood>. I just kept the stock OS and uninstalled a lot of acer's bloatware.

I think I figured out the touchpad issue, well partially at least. It looks like the touchpad is managed from the metro side instead of the desktop side like win7. If you hit the win key then search touchpad you'll see "Mouse and touchpad settings":

hope that helps some...it at least allowed me to reverse the scrolling direction.

zumtotal · September 2014

Well found, islandhopper.

I think what we have is a very basic touchpad that is limited in it's features by design. Well, it's just a cheap laptop, but even my old Samsung NC10 netbook had a full-featured Synaptics touchpad with many adjustable parameters.

zumtotal · September 2014

Here is the answer:

http://community.acer.com/t5/Notebooks-Netbooks/Aspire-E5-511-Touchpad-Driver-not-working/m-p/289798#U289798

It is by design. We have a precision touchpad, not Synaptics.

jescott418 · November 2014

Mine is running Windows 7, but similar issues. It freezes when moving cursor, did restore twice, installed all current drivers on Acer site. Even tried a Synaptics driver. I finally gave up and ask vendor for return and refund. Not worth spending more time on it. I had a broken laptop that worked better. Otherwise its a nice small notebook but the Touchpad definately has issues.