Elan Touchscreen/Synaptics Touchpad problems on Toshiba W35Dt

Hello everyone. Today I come to you with problems on my little laptop/tablet convertable. I was tired of Win8.1 so decided to go the way of OpenSUSE. Install went ok aside from some RadeonHD problems that I have resolved. Now I have the system running fairly stable on openSUSE 13.1 with the TabletPC pattern installed and all software updated through YaST. The problem I am having now is sort of a two-part problem. First, the touchpad does not work, I read some problems others were having with touchpads getting partial functionality. Mine does nothing. The second part to the problem, my touch screen is working, however it is working as a mouse instead of a touchscreen. Meaning, if I tap and move even a small distance, instead of a click, or even a drag, I get a click AND drag. I also am showing no signs of multitouch working on the touchscreen, however I’m not completely certain what is supported with touchscreens at this time. My main concern right now is to have a working touchpad… And if someone can help get my touchscreen working like a touchscreen instead of a mouse that would just be an added benefit. I have pasted a few things which seem relevant based on what I’ve seen asked in other posts. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys and girls!

./hwinfo --mouse

36: USB 00.0: 10503 USB Mouse                                   
  [Created at usb.122]
  Unique ID: ZmS7.2h_3WMpRUp0
  Parent ID: 7eqy.erpEvbsFWX1
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.0/usb6/6-1/6-1:1.0
  SysFS BusID: 6-1:1.0
  Hardware Class: mouse
  Model: "Elan Microelectronics Touchscreen"
  Hotplug: USB
  Vendor: usb 0x04f3 "Elan Microelectronics Corp."
  Device: usb 0x0181 "Touchscreen"
  Revision: "11.11"
  Compatible to: int 0x0210 0x0000
  Driver: "usbhid"
  Driver Modules: "usbhid"
  Device File: /dev/input/mice (/dev/input/mouse1)
  Device Files: /dev/input/mice, /dev/input/mouse1, /dev/input/event9, /dev/input/by-id/usb-ELAN_Touchscreen-event-if00, /dev/input/by-path/pci-0000:00:13.0-usb-0:1:1.0-event
  Device Number: char 13:63 (char 13:33)
  Speed: 12 Mbps
  Module Alias: "usb:v04F3p0181d1111dc00dsc00dp00ic03isc00ip00in00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Buttons: 0
    Wheels: 0
    XFree86 Protocol: explorerps/2
    GPM Protocol: exps2
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #35 (Hub)

43: PS/2 00.0: 10500 PS/2 Mouse
  [Created at input.249]
  Unique ID: AH6Q.Y_f5kDtfqz2
  Hardware Class: mouse
  Model: "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
  Vendor: 0x0002 
  Device: 0x0007 "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
  Compatible to: int 0x0210 0x0001
  Device File: /dev/input/mice (/dev/input/mouse0)
  Device Files: /dev/input/mice, /dev/input/mouse0, /dev/input/event1, /dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-2-event-mouse, /dev/input/by-path/platform-i8042-serio-2-mouse
  Device Number: char 13:63 (char 13:32)
  Driver Info #0:
    Buttons: 1
    Wheels: 0
    XFree86 Protocol: explorerps/2
    GPM Protocol: exps2
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

**cat /proc/bus/input/devices (relevant areas only I hope)
**

...

I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0007 Version=01b1
N: Name="SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio2/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/i8042/serio2/input/input1
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse0 event1 
B: PROP=5
B: EV=b
B: KEY=e520 10000 0 0 0 0
B: ABS=660800011000003

...

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=04f3 Product=0181 Version=0110
N: Name="ELAN Touchscreen"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:13.0-1/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:13.0/usb6/6-1/6-1:1.0/input/input9
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse1 event9 
B: PROP=2
B: EV=b
B: KEY=400 0 0 0 0 0
B: ABS=3273800000000003


xinput list


⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ ELAN Touchscreen                          id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                         id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ TOSHIBA Web Camera - HD                   id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=11   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Toshiba input device                      id=13   [slave  keyboard (3)]

Onces again… thanks for any help. And if any more info would be helpful just let me know.

Your touchpad seems to be correctly recognised (based on the output that you posted), but I wonder if it is your active touchscreen preventing the touchpad from being active. Which desktop are you using? KDE (for example), can be configured (via synaptiks) to disable the touchpad when a mouse is plugged in. I wonder if something like this is at play.

Yes. KDE. In Synaptiks the options to auto disable is not checked. Also under touchpad configuration is displays SynPS/2 touchpad under hardware information. So it appears that is detecting it. But it does not respond.

I also tried Kubuntu, Ubuntu, and Netrunner with the same problem. I decided to come back to OpenSUSE and try and fix the problem here as I preferred this distro in the first place. Maybe that will help narrow down where this issue is coming from.

If you used the dvd as the installer then you should have an option to log-in to another DE such as icewm? If so, you can try that and see if your touchpad is working in that DE. I have the same issue before and that is what i have done. When i log-in to KDE the touchpad is disabled but when i log-in into icewm then my Elantech touchpad is working properly. So i have narrow down the issue. I just disable the touchpad daemon from KDE system-settings and everything works fine. I hope that helps. :slight_smile:

Does the following help to enable it?

synclient TouchpadOff=0

BTW, the touchpad user attributes can be reported with

synclient -l

Alternatively, using your ‘xinput list’ which reported that the touchpad was device 12, you can also get the device settings with

xinput list-props 10

and check if the device is enabled (or not). There are two key attributes that can disable/enable the device. For reference, I have

Device Enabled (152):   1

and

Synaptics Off (292):    0

If disabled, they can be respectively enabled using

xinput --set-prop 12 'Synaptics Off' 0

and

xinput enable 12

Gave it a try in ICEWM and not getting a response from the touchpad. Weird.

Ok, the synclient command made no changes. synclient -l did list user attributes and everything looks pretty standard.

The xinput commands also didn’t change anything. I also added a file to /etc/modprobe.d/ to blacklist usbhid hoping it would stop the touchscreen from registering a module at startup, but after a reboot it is still the same. Any other ideas? :slight_smile:

There was a recent thread concerning a touchpad which was not supported properly by current kernels, and a workaround was mentioned (read post #35 onwards)

https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/498880-Touchpad-from-ElanTech-not-working?p=2659124#post2659124

This might provide an acceptable (temporary) solution for you.