Today, I woke up my computer from sleep mode and encountered a nasty surprise: the touchpad on my laptop no longer worked. Here's what I did to try to solve the problem.

Failed solution #: Press F6

When the touchpad stops working on a Lenovo laptop, the solution is usually just to press F6 or Fn + F6. This because F6 is the hotkey to enable and disable the touchpad on Lenovo laptops.

But I pressed these keys over and over and the touchpad still didn't work.

Failed solution #: Sleep mode

Another common solution is to put your computer to sleep and then wake it up again. It works for crying babies and I also find it usually makes my cursor start working again.

However, this time, shock horror, it didn't solve the problem.

Failed solution #: Update the touchpad driver

My next thought was that this was probably a driver issue. So I opened Device Manager so I could take a look at the touchpad driver. But what I saw next, dear reader, shocked me to the very core: "Mice and other pointing devices" was gone.

It was as though the touchpad no longer existed. At this point I feared that the touchpad had died and gone to heaven, meaning I would have to get a replacement.

Failed solution #: Download a touchpad driver

I still suspected that the issue was to do with the touchpad driver. So I downloaded the latest Synaptics Pointing Device driver for Windows 10 from https://support.lenovo.com/es/en/downloads/ds032247. But when I tried to install it, I got the message "Synaptics device not found!"

This was no surprise. Since my laptop no longer even recognised the touchpad (a.k.a. the "Synaptics device"), it couldn't apply a driver to it.

Failed solution #: System Restore

My next idea was to do a system restore to a restore point that was created three days earlier. However, this didn't do shit. "Mice and other pointing devices" was still gone from Device Manager.

Failed solution #: Download a different touchpad driver

I still thought the problem was driver related, so I searched Google for "Ideapad 700-15ISK touchpad driver", or something like that. I found a driver at a different page of pcsupport.lenovo.com than last time. So I downloaded it, installed it, and got the message:

The drivers were successfully installed on this computer!

Driver Name: Synaptics HIDClass (05/09/2017 19.3.10.38)

Status: Not needed (Not device for update present)

Driver name: Synaptics (SynTP) Mouse (05/09/2017 19.3.10.38)

Status: Device Updated

The messages looked promising. I especially liked the word "successfully" and the happy exclamation point. Not so much the "Not needed (Not device for update present)" part though.

Did this solve the problem? No, but "Mice and other pointing devices" was still gone from Device Manager. And the touchpad still didn't work. God damn it.

Failed solution #: Update Windows

At forums.lenovo.com, someone with a similar problem said "Ended up updating windows 10 to the latest version and that worked". So I tried to update Windows but I couldn't because it was already up to date. Fuck.

Failed solution #: Uninstall Synaptics Pointing Device

On the same page, someone else said "I removed the Synaptics Pointing Device software via ADD/REMOVE Programs". But I didn't even have "Synatics Pointing Device" in my add/remove programs list, so I couldn't do this either. Double fuck.

Failed solution #: Plug in a USB mouse

I plugged in a USB mouse. This didn't make the touchpad work, but at least I could control the cursor again.

Failed solution #: Download another touchpad driver

I went back to download.lenovo.com and downloaded the "Touchpad Driver". When I tried to install it, I got the message "A newer version of the Synaptics Pointing Device Driver is installed. If you want to install the older version of the Driver, please uninstall the current Synaptics driver by selecting "Synaptics Pointing Device" from the "Add/Remove Programs" Control Panel, then run Setup again."

So I looked in the Add/Remove programs settings but I still couldn’t see Synaptics Pointing Device. Hmm.

Failed solution #: Enable the mousepad from the BIOS

At tomsguide.com, some people were recommending checking the BIOS to see if the touchpad was switched off there. So I went into the BIOS but there were no options to do with the mousepad.

Failed solution #: Enable the mousepad from Mouse Properties

support.lenovo.com told me to go to Mouse Properties in the Control Panel. Strangely, I could see the touchpad under ‘devices’. It said the "Synaptics ClickPad V8.1 on PS/2 Port" was enabled.

I tried disabling it and re-enabling it, and the touchpad still didn't work.

Successful solution: Update/Reinstall the BIOS

What worked for me was updating the BIOS. I downloaded the latest bios from pcsupport.lenovo.com, installed it, and the touchpad worked again! Hurrah!

"Mice and other pointing devices" was back in Device Manager too:

Except... just five days later, the touchpad stopped working again. "Mice and ther pointing devices" disappeared again from Device Manager too.

I then had an idea that I could fix the touchpad again by reinstalling the BIOS. However, this was more difficult than it sounds, because when I tried to reinstall the BIOS, I got the error "ERROR 182 – BIOS image is equal or older than ROM!"

Despite what you might think, error 182 is not a cover band for Blink 182. No, what error 182 means is that Lenovo won't let you install a BIOS that's the same version as the current BIOS.

There is a way around this however. If you enable "Rollback flash" in the BIOS settings, you can now install a BIOS that’s the same version as the current BIOS.

So I reinstalled the BIOS, and... the touchpad is working again!

Conclusion: A surefire way to get the touchpad working again, albeit temporarily, is to update or reinstall the BIOS.