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I've just installed Ubuntu 14.04.2 on my Dell XPS13 (windows version, not a developer sputnik version). For the most part this has worked ok -- the main issues lie with the touchpad, after booting the touchpad works well then the performance deteriorates. Broadly these issues include: 1) Freezing periodically 2) Jumping cursor when attempting to move

I've noticed that when this occurs there is a always a MCE error syslogged after a frozen cursor: e.g. [Fri Mar 6 13:58:55 2015] mce: [Hardware Error]: Machine check events logged

sometimes the cursor stays frozen and I have to reboot to get it back othertimes it returns (in fact I'm presently plugging in a mouse to work).

I notice there are two pointing devices listed, the DLL0665:0 I've no idea of.

  • DLL0665:01 06CB:76AD UNKNOWN SynPS/2
  • Synaptics TouchPad

they seem to have slightly different properties set on the config tool. gpointing-device-settings -- could there be a clash?

$ xinput --lists
⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech Unifying Device. Wireless PID:1025   id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech Unifying Device. Wireless PID:2011   id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ ELAN Touchscreen                          id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ DLL0665:01 06CB:76AD UNKNOWN              id=14   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad                id=16   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Integrated_Webcam_HD                      id=13   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard              id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Dell WMI hotkeys                          id=17   [slave  keyboard (3)]

UPDATE:

OK, the long-period freezing issue markedly improved when I disabled the kernel module i2c_hid. The freezing still exists, but it is greatly reduced in frequency and only lasts <1s, before freezing was many minutes or worse.

> sudo -i
> touch /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist_i2c_hid.conf
> gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist_i2c_hid.conf
> write : blacklist i2c_hid
> restart

after restarting you will see the xinput list does not show the "DLL0665:01 06CB:76AD UNKNOWN". The MCE logs are still being generated, but the touchpad is at least usable.

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  • 2
    Install 15.04, all of your issues with the touchpad should disappear
    – Hinrich
    May 8, 2015 at 7:50

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
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This might not solve your issue, but seeing as your question came up when I was searching on my own this might help. I found that under Mint using the linux kernel version 3.16.30 most things are working but the touchpad dies on resume from suspend. Running the below script removes and then adds back the touchpad's kernel module, resetting it to its boot time behaviour:

#!/bin/bash
sudo rmmod hid_multitouch
sudo modprobe hid_multitouch
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Using the sputnik kernel (made by Dell) solved (most of) my issues. I have an ex-windows version as well. 

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:canonical-hwe-team/sputnik-kernel
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install linux
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A new bios version (A05) was just released by Dell, which fixes some issues with the touchpad. I just updated it myself and it helped a bunch. See here for detailed instructions on how to install the firmware on a windows xps13 (currently running kubuntu)

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I use grub as a bootloader and had turned UEFI off somehow to be able to boot usb disks, which makes the default of just putting the .exe file on a usb and booting it a bit harder, but this did it

  1. Download the Windows/DOS BIOS installer for your hardware from dell.com
  2. Download the latest SystemRescueCD and burn it to a blank CD or install it to a USB flash drive.
  3. Copy the Windows/DOS BIOS installer to a FAT formatted USB stick or the one that you installed the SystemRescueCD on.
  4. Boot from the CD or flash drive.
  5. Choose to boot from FreeDOS in the floppy images menu.
  6. Make sure you do NOT load HIMEM and EMM386 memory managers.
  7. Change to the USB stick (typically C: if you do not have any FAT partitions on your HDD). Remember to change, just type: "C:"
  8. Run the installer

Inspired by this post.

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Sometime after the Ubuntu 17.10 upgrade, the touchpad stopped working.

I had to remove /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist_i2c_hid.conf

And then the touchpad started working again.

I also patched xserver-xorg-input-synaptics as described below. I patched the github source code, rather than the Ubuntu source code.

http://xps13-9333.appspot.com/#touchpad

Touchpad issue: jumping cursor while typing (Ubuntu 14.04), syndaemon don't help

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