Windows 10 Windows update keeps breaking touchpad driver

[phantom16]

Pretty simple, but annoying issue. I have had this Acer aspire V5-591g-70S6 for about half a year now. For the past couple of months, every time windows forces my computer to restart to install updates, my touchpad stops working.

Every time, I have to reinstall the touchpad driver, and it has gotten to the point where i no longer delete the installation folder since I need to do it often enough. I generally don't have any other issue drivers, and I got the driver directly from Acer's website.

Any ideas on how to ensure my touchpad driver keeps working after a windows update?

Thanks!

 

[Neemobeer]

The question is, is Windows Updates trying to install a different driver for the touchpad? If it is let it install then go into device manager and right click on the touchpad > properties and select roll back driver. This will roll it back to the working driver while keeping that buggy version. Once you do the roll back Windows will stop trying to update it.

 

[phantom16]

Ok, not sure when the next windows update is, but when it happens, I will give this a shot and report back. Thanks!

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Microsoft is currently doing weekly push-updates to windows machines every Tuesday and have been doing this for a few years now. Monthly push-updates have been coming into W10 machines since August 2015. They've had 3 cumulative updates since the intro date of W10 last July 29th 2015; Nov. 2015 update, March 2016 update, and the most recent cumulative update, the Aug. 2nd Anniversary Update(AU) which was an accumulation of ALL updates for W10 since W10 intro date July 29th 2016. FYI.

Best,
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

[phantom16]

So it has finally been a month, and windows had its update, and the touchpad isn't working again.

I tried going to the drivers, and I kind of forget which one is for the touchpad, but either it isn't listed, or it is the "I2C HID Device" that has the yellow exclamation mark on it. I tried going to the properties though for that device and rolling it back, but the roll back option is greyed out, so I can't click on it. The touchpad isn't in the "Mice and other pointing devices", as the only entry there is for a "HID-compliant mouse", and that is for my USB mouse, which disappears from the device manager if i unplug the mouse.

So to me, it seems that the windows 10 update is just removing my touchpad mouse driver. Any other ideas on how to tackle this issue?

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Hi again;

There are several possibilities here, but let's start with this:

According to the Acer Support site, you have 2 possible Touchpad drivers excerpted here from this driver page: Link Removed. Search by Model Number and enter in: Aspire V5-591G. The Driver download page will pop up on your screen and display the 2 Touchpad drivers. They are here:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
TouchPad ELANTECH Touchpad Driver 13.6.3.1 7.0 MB 2015/11/05

TouchPad Synaptics Touchpad Driver 19.0.7.34 1.3 MB 2015/11/05
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So whichever Touchpad driver is installed in your Device Manager (let's say it's the ELANTECH driver), it's quite possible Windows Update is installing the other Touchpad driver, in this case the Synaptics driver; but it really wants the ELANTECH driver or vice versa. I suggest you uninstall whichever of these 2 drivers is giving you the warning yellow triangle message, and install the OTHER driver. In the example above, if you are getting the error on the Synaptics driver that Windows Update installed; completely uninstall it making sure to disable your Antivirus program first. Leaving your Antivirus program disabled, download and install the ELANTECH driver. If the ELANTECH driver is now installed and working; create a Restore Point, and cold boot or power cycle your laptop to lock everything in place. Of course, you'll have to reverse this process if the Windows Update installed the ELANTECH driver and uninstall and replace with the Synaptics driver. Just the opposite of my 1st example. It shouldn't be too hard, as there are only 2 drivers available on the Acer support download site. Following this procedure should fix it for you!

If my procedure still doesn't fix it, you have a more serious problem with your laptop. Most likely causes are:
1.) Virus/Malware infection. You didn't mention if you scanned for viruses or not. Use your built-in antivirus program and scan/remove all viruses found. Then download the free MALWAREBYTES antispyware program from Malwarebytes.org and scan/remove all found spyware viruses. Retest for your problem.
2.) Windows Registry corruption. This may require a library folder backup and Windows reset or Windows reinstallation from factory Recovery Media (DVD or USB) or factory Recovery built-in Partition. Retest for your problem.
3.) If none of these work, it's likely you are experiencing a Hardware Failure such as a failed RAM Stick(s) or a faulty Hard Drive. To test your Hardware, see my instructions for Hardware testing here: Windows 10 - Unclickable Task Bar.

Bear in mind that if removing and reinstalling or doing a rollback on your Touchpad drivers doesn't work, you'll have to consider taking more drastic measures to resolve your problem such as finding and removing a virus infection or testing your hardware and replacing a faulty RAM stick or Hard Drive and then doing a Windows reinstallation to get things working again. 90% of the time these procedures will take care of your problem.

Best of luck,
<<<BBJ>>>

 

[phantom16]

So, it took me a couple days to update, but I thought I would mention. Like I said, the windows patch removed the driver. My computer was kind of freaking out in that it wouldn't stay in sleep mode and kept immediately waking up. I decided to just shut down my computer, and the next day, my touchpad was working again. Device manager now has another "HID-compliant mouse" entry, but not a specific Elantech entry (I do have the Elantech driver, and not the Synaptics one), if that makes a difference.

The "I2C HID Device" (which is in the "Human Interface Devices" section) also doesn't have the yellow error message anymore. I am not really sure what that is for, since it is in a different section.

Because my computer was constantly waking up from sleep mode, I also flashed the Bios with the newest version, and that helped the sleeping issue. Maybe that will also fix the driver issue in the future?

In light of this, what is your proposed way to proceed? should I still follow the first part of your last post? Or should we maybe wait another month and see if the Windows update overwrites the driver, or if the Bios update maybe fixed some underlying issue?

I don't imagine that it would be a virus or corruption, unless it was that way at the beginning, because this laptop has been doing this ever since I bought it. Maybe it's bad Ram, but I have no other major issues with this computer that indicates I have bad ram, this is just happening every time windows updates my computer every month :/