I have managed to resolve this issue with the help of an Alienware laptop forum of all places.. I also have an Alienware 17 R1 from 2013, and it also uses a synaptics touchpad driver.. i installed two ssd’s in it so I could preserve the original drive and improve speed a little and I did the normal install routine for windows and my apps.. and then I started having the exact same touchpad issues as the Dell laptop I’m writing about in this forum.. I scoured the Alienware forums and saw that the Dell Support Assist program was the culprit and that everyone that had it said they uninstalled it and their issue with the touchpad went away.. I followed suit and no more issues for my Alienware… so I flipped open the Inspiron and did the same.. much to my surprise, it worked!  So my advice on this would be to just remove the Dell support assist program if you absolutely don’t need it.  I’ve had no issues on either machine for the better part of two weeks now.
Hello, I recently acquired an Inspiron M731R Indigo Blue model with the AMD A8 quad core with Radeon graphics.. at a whopping 1.7-2.4ghz!  I won it at an auction and it was legit brand new. Looks like they just opened the box to make sure it wasn’t damaged.. I had the original W8 out of box experience when I charged the battery and turned it on for the first time…. That being said, the original 1tb 5400 rpm drive was deathly slow when paired with the CPU, and I had to do something about it. I installed a Crucial 500gb SSD, and windows 10, and then I upgraded the ram from 8 to 16gb. Everything works flawlessly except the touch pad, and like it did with the old HDD and W8, it would stop working and only would start once it was rebooted. So.. to sum it up.. both original OS W8, and new W10 both exhibit same behavior.  I’ve tried a few different drivers with no luck, and have resorted to a wireless mouse.   Anyone have any suggestions for a fix? Or is this just a case of a lemon driver? Thanks
Inspiron M731R trackpad stops working at random