[ltp] No touchpad with latest BIOS?

[Richard]

> I'm not sure it's related: my touchpad doesn't work. The TrackPoint works
> okay, but at no level does the system see the Synaptics Touchpad. It doesn't
> have it's usual entries under /sys, and HAL doesn't see it either. I booted
> from a LiveCD and it was dead there too. According to the enclosed letter,
> IBM updated the BIOS and embedded controller programs. I think my EC program
> was already the latest (1.04), but I knew I was a few revisions behind in the
> BIOS department. The latest and now the version installed on this machine is
> verison 1.27.


As I understand it, the trackpoint is connected in "series" with the 
touchpad, and the synaptics controller handles both of them.  THe 
synaptics controller is mounted physically on the same PCB as the 
touchpad.

              TPAD
               |
TPOINT ----SYNAPTICS---MOTHERBOARD

So, I think you can rule out a physically missing connection. (Although 
removing the keyboard to check won't take too long).


As far as UDEV sees it, there are 2 different devices, one for the tpad, 
and one for the tpoint. These are normally, but not always combined into
/dev/input/mice.

What happens when you do, for each possible $X

   cat /dev/input/$X

while wiggling the various devices and pressing buttons?

Do you get any data stream?

How many devices do you see?

If I recall correctly, the tpoint = /dev/input/mouseX
and the tpad = /dev/input/mouseY AND /dev/input/eventZ

I assume you are using a 2.6 kernel and udev? (practically any modern 
distro does this).

Lastly, I think that the tpad can be disabled as a BIOS config option - 
you might want to double check.

Hope that helps,

Richard