Touchpad freezes on HWiNFO64 launch

[TheFlyingFish]

Hello all,

I'm having a bit of a problem here. Whenever I launch HWiNFO64, my touchpad stops working. Nothing else has any problems - I can have a USB mouse plugged into the computer working just fine; the keyboard works just fine, etc., but the touchpad always freezes up as HWiNFO64 is gathering info. Somewhere between the "Detecting processors" and "Detecting IDE/SCSI Drives" portions, I think. I've attached the debug and report files.

Running on an HP Pavilion dv6t-7000 Quad Edition. Any ideas?

 

[Martin]

Such problem is very hard to track on a machine to which I don't have access.
You might try to disable certain options in the "Configure" menu and see if something helps.. I would suggest try to disable IDE Drive Scan, EC Support and SMBus...
Please let me know if you will find an option which solves this.

 

[TheFlyingFish]

Ok, it definitely seems to be SMBus Support that is causing problems. If I disable SMBus Support before launching, nothing goes wrong. If it's enabled, the touchpad freezes up midway through loading. Will having SMBus disabled much affect HWiNFO64's ability to monitor my hardware?

 

[Martin]

This is interesting.. If you disable the entire SMBus, then HWiNFO won't be able to report memory module information and certain sensors.
Instead of disabling the entire SMBus, it's possible that only a single (or few) addresses there are problematic. So you might check the "SMBus Device Exclusion" list and check the boxes to disable particular addresses. Since this will require several test attempts, to speed up the searching process you might try to walk line by line first to determine it and if you find a device in a certain line is causing it (means you have checked all boxes in a certain line and it doesn't freeze), then narrow it down to the address which is causing it.
Please let me know if you are able to find such...

 

[Elusive]

This is interesting.. If you disable the entire SMBus, then HWiNFO won't be able to report memory module information and certain sensors.
Instead of disabling the entire SMBus, it's possible that only a single (or few) addresses there are problematic. So you might check the "SMBus Device Exclusion" list and check the boxes to disable particular addresses. Since this will require several test attempts, to speed up the searching process you might try to walk line by line first to determine it and if you find a device in a certain line is causing it (means you have checked all boxes in a certain line and it doesn't freeze), then narrow it down to the address which is causing it.
Please let me know if you are able to find such...

I had the same problem with a HP Envy M6-1117tx running Windows 8 x64. It seems to work with 0x50-0x57 ticked (I left the default 0x0n row and 0x69 ticked). I'll try to isolate it more later, though there seems to be multiple that can cause it, and it's somewhat intermittent if they aren't all unticked.

I also can't restart (waits forever on restart screen) when the touchpad dies, which makes testing harder and more dangerous - the constant hard shutdowns can't be doing much good for the OS and FS...

Interestingly, the touchpad is listed in the Device Manager as a `HP SMBUS Touchpad`.

 

[Martin]

Thanks for your feedback. It seems SMBus-based Touchpads are not well designed, because they don't allow other tools to perform SMBus transactions.
Please let us know if you determine something more, also a screenshot of final list of excluded SMBus devices would be nice.
Note, that when you disable addresses 0x5n then this excludes reading of DIMM SPD information, so you won't seen any memory module information. Though, it seems this might be needed in this case

 

[Elusive]

Thanks for your feedback. It seems SMBus-based Touchpads are not well designed, because they don't allow other tools to perform SMBus transactions.
Please let us know if you determine something more, also a screenshot of final list of excluded SMBus devices would be nice.
Note, that when you disable addresses 0x5n then this excludes reading of DIMM SPD information, so you won't seen any memory module information. Though, it seems this might be needed in this case

Here's the current settings:



If I untick the first (two) or last (two) in the 0x5n row, then the issue occurs intermittently. (If I untick all, the issue occurs every time I've tried.) I'm currently only accepting it as 'working' if it works ten times. I'll try some more when I have more time.

Are there any specific addresses that are required for reading SPD? Or is it the whole row?

Programs like CPU-Z don't cause any issues, and are able to display memory module information. Are they using a method other than SMBus, or are they (luckily) avoiding the problematic addresses? Perhaps the way they use SMBus is different?

The touchpad is listed as `Location: plugged into PS/2 mouse port`. The driver has been giving me issues anyway, so this isn't really a surprise...

 

[Martin]

It's interesting that CPU-Z doesn't cause such issues, since it should use the same method to access SMBus, so I'll check that...
As for SPD, the modules can reside at any address in the 0x50 - 0x57 range.

 

[Martin]

Update:
I have just got feedback from Synaptics (manufacturer of the SMBus Touchpad). They say that using their touchpad driver version v16.3.8 and later should no longer cause such problems.
This would need to be verified...

 

[Elusive]

Update:
I have just got feedback from Synaptics (manufacturer of the SMBus Touchpad). They say that using their touchpad driver version v16.3.8 and later should no longer cause such problems.
This would need to be verified...

Thanks for the info.

HP's latest driver for this model is 16.2.10.12, from 2012-09-07. Looks like I'll have to bug them about it... or install the Synaptics version and hope it doesn't break anything (it did in a previous HP laptop...).

I'll get back to you with the results, hopefully sometime soon.

Thank you for all the help, and this excellent utility!

 

[Martin]

It seems the Synaptics driver v16.3.8 was not yet released and according to Synaptics it should be released the next week.

 

[Elusive]

It seems the Synaptics driver v16.3.8 was not yet released and according to Synaptics it should be released the next week.

v16.3.8.8 seems to be available for download from Synaptics' website. However, OEMs tend to lag by a fair bit, so I'll probably have to wait for a while. Hopefully HP picks it up soon.

 

[Martin]

I'll check with Synaptics whether that v16.3.8.8 does already contain the fix, or if there will be a newer version required.

 

[Martin]

Great and fast support from Synaptics, already got response
So that v16.3.8.8 currently available on web does NOT have the fix yet. It should be in a next version to be released sometime next week.

 

[tcatman896]

I really like your program and it worked fine on my HP dv6. Today I bought a HP dv7-7300 and the programs runs fine about every other time but I also get the frozen touch pad issue...I am patient and am sure this will get straightened out eventually. Keep me posted.
Thanks.

 

[Elusive]

Well, they don't appear to have released anything newer than 16.3.8.8 yet. And I've just had my touchpad freeze even with the majority of the 0x5n row checked.

 

[Martin]

Yes, they haven't managed to release an update this week, so let's hope they will do it the next one.
Until the fix is available you should disable entire SMBus support in HWiNFO.

 

[stasio]

16.3.9.0

 

[Martin]

Thanks, stasio. However, on Wednesday I got e-mail from a Synaptics engineer that they haven't managed to include the fix the last week, so I'm not sure if build 16.3.9.0 fixes it.

 

[Martin]

Since I'm not sure when/how will Synaptics fix this problem, I made more research and added an enhancement in HWiNFO which I hope might fix this problem. Please try the following build:

HWiNFO32: www.hwinfo.com/beta/hw32_415_1885.zip
or
HWiNFO64: www.hwinfo.com/beta/hw64_415_1885.zip

and let me know how it works.