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Turning of/on touch pad on laptop

11 years ago

For reasons I can not determine my Gateway NE71B W8 laptop lost the use of the touch pad. I recall having the ability to turn the touch pad of on other computers when I was using a mouse. I can not fine either a control panel or Fn/Key to operate to toggle the touch pad off/on. I plugged a mouse in and the it works fine. Perhaps the hardware is bad/broken. The laptop is less than 2 years old but has seen regular use (not a business machine, just email and browsing).

Looking for suggestions, I have not searched the web, if I should have sorry, my mind-reflex always sends me here..... THANKS

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Comments (6)

jerry_nj
Original Author
11 years ago
Found the answer, used W8 to get user manual and looked at the function keys... F6 is the touch pad toggle on/off. All seems to now be working with the touch pad.
mikie_gw
11 years ago
Moments ago I was asked to fix a touchpad.. Elan .. it was simply mysteriously disabled. She had just installed Citrix for her work, and its showing errors. I kind of guessed that was somehow the snafu as she has no cat walking on her keyboard.
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jerry_nj
Original Author
11 years ago
No cats here either, but a lap dog may be the culprit ..... I think I just managed to push that key while dusting of dust and dog hairs. All's well now.
chas045
11 years ago
Thank you Jerry. I am no longer of much use to the forum, but I do know that both the readers of, and the knowledgable posters appreciate knowing how things turned out.
User
11 years ago
last modified: 11 years ago
Jerry,

On my Acer Laptop (which Acer, Gateway and Emachines are all owned by Acer) you use the F7 key. But you also have to push the Fn Key (Function Key) at the same time. It's located in the Lower Left Corner of the Keyboard, between the Ctrl and Windows Keys.
jerry_nj
Original Author
11 years ago
As I said, on the Gateway NE71B it is the F6 key and the Fn key does not need to be pushed. Better if ti did as that would prevent what happened to me, accidentally pushing the F6 key and thus not knowing it, only knowing the touch pad was dead. I tested just now and confirmed what I say.

All made by Acer, no argument here, but it appears some functions are in different physical places on different models.

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