Laptop tech question... any ideas?
 

So my daughter's laptop before you login the smartpad on it works fine to control the pointer, but once logged in it no longer works and you must plug in a mouse to move it. I check the device mgr. and it says its working fine but clearly it isn't, so any ideas on what would cause this?

There is a good chance some spyware is messing with it, I would run a scan and check that out first.

There is also sometimes an actual software that controls this. My laptop uses something called "Synaptics Pointing Device" for lenovo where you can change the setting to use, or not use the onboard mouse or a usb etc..

What he said. Many have a either a software switch or actual physical switch on the side to turn it on/off. Sometimes a function button combo, like on Lenovo its "the blue FN" + F8

Most likely a driver conflict or faulty driver. Post normal windows load is like booting up in safe mode is why it loads up initially. Then when the custom driver kicks in is where you can get conflicts.

Open up the device manager and go under pointing devices-> properties -> driver tab and write down the driver version. Also write down if its a 3rd party driver such as one directly from Dell, Lenova..etc....or if its a Microsoft Certified generic one...

If you have a dell, you can goto

http://support.dell.com and enter your service tag and get the proper driver

The easiest thing to do is just simply remove the device and let the driver reload: device manager -> uninstall -> checkbox remove driver as well

Action - > scan for hardware changes, should install Windows 7/8 certified driver

reboot....see if it works in Windows.

Then you can goto your laptop manufacture site and get a 3rd party driver for it, or go through windows update and see if there is one there.

that should get you fixed.