XPS 14, USB 3.0 Dock, Touchpad Issues

[cdenger]

Setup: XPS 14 connected to dual monitors, ethernet, mouse and keyboard.
The monitors freeze occasionally, but after troubleshooting driver versions for a couple weeks with Targus we have accepted occasional freezing (not really acceptable in my opinion but the user is tired of dealing with it). Can't charge any device through the dock (iphones, tablets etc) without massive freezing. Now he just plugs them into the wall.

Newest problem: Touchpad shows constant activity when the laptop lid is closed. Cursor jumps all over the place and programs open and close because the touchpad is receiving a signal to "click". With the lid open, the touchpad is fine.

Troubleshooting performed and still no fix:

1. Uninstalled all touchpad drivers, quickset, etc. then reinstalled. Works fine for about 1 hour then reverts back to the new normal.
2. Dell then replaced the touchpad/palmrest and updated the drivers again.
3. Tried all combinations of display link, USB 3.0 and Nvidia drivers recommended by Targus and display link.
4. Connected the XPS to a single monitor via HDMI/DVI and a regular USB mouse and keyboard. The problem does not occur with the lid closed.
5. If I disable the touchpad and close the lid while connected to Targus dock it doesn't have issues. I have also tried various touchpad "solutions" with no fix including: turning off ambient light sensor, setting touchpad sensitivity to the lowest setting, turned off multi finger gesture controls, used only the windows touchpad driver, etc.
6. Connected the targus dock to both powered and non-powered USB 3.0 ports, both have issues.
7. Ran the debugging program provided and reported results to targus/displaylink.

Is this happening to anyone else or does anyone have ideas on a fix? To me it seems the dock is sending electrical signals sporadically when it is docked. Needless to say, we have avoided purchasing any more of these docks for our University.

[krose77]

We have the same set up here at our company with XPS 14 and XPS 13 with the Targus docking station using DisplayLink.

We are having the same issue with the touchpad you described as: Touchpad shows constant activity when the laptop lid is closed. Cursor jumps all over the place and programs open and close because the touchpad is receiving a signal to "click". With the lid open, the touchpad is fine.

It is driving us crazy and we can't figure out a fix. Were you able to come up with a solution? It does not seem like a suitable answer to tell our users to keep their lid slightly open but that is the only way we have been able to get past this issue.

We are no longer purchasing the XPS models because of this but we have quite a few in the field now and you are the only posting I've found about it. Please let me know if you have had any progress with this.

[wonderose]

I do have a somewhat similar problem.

My setup: Lenovo Helix with touchpad and touchscreen, Windows 8, a Toshiba Dynadock USB 3.0 and one external monitor (Acer S243HL).

Every time I close the lid of my laptop, the external display shows my cursor stuck at the very same position on the screen, with a context menu about to be open (in form of a quadrangle) or already open (with all the menu points I don’t want to choose from).

To free my stubborn cursor, which won’t move from the center right of my Acer monitor, I reopen the lid, and indeed, it is gone quite easily. But if I shut the lid again, it reappears on the dot. It’s a nice game to play, and in the end, after a few moments of despair, I always win, having reconquered my cursor and made the quadrangle (or the context menu) disappear.

Yet, in the course of time, my despair grew ever deeper, and on expert counsel, I replaced the Dynadock (and DisplayLink’s software) with a standard HDMI cable. My problems are now gone. No quadrangle, no unwanted context menu. And I am relieved.

But if this problem is going to be fixed sometime in the future, I will certainly be glad to reinstall DisplayLink.

PS: I forgot to add that without DisplayLink manager the CPU usage is down by 5 to 20 %, which in turn has some a positive effect on the fan noise.

PPS: Before giving up on DisplayLink and reverting to a simple HDMI cable, I had installed the very newest version (7.4.51587.0 and 7.2.8000.17).

[lkraav]

Here's another XPS14 L421x user with the crazy touchpad issue, when lid is closed. This is a model-specific hardware problem. I'm running Linux. Only way to control this is to disable the touchpad in software, before closing the lid.

[dimsum]

We've had similar issues with the L322x. We ended up installing the cyprus trackpad driver and disabling the trackpad when an external USB mouse is detected.