Truly retarded laptop problem - please advise!

[jakobkraft]

Okay, so I got this laptop from a former IT guy in my company, a real geek who had it painted black with glossy spray paint just cause he didn't like the original silver finish. But now the mouse touchpad is almost totally desensitized, I gotta use two fingers pressed down hard to navigate. I know I can just connect an external mouse but the reason I got this thing was to work during my commute, no desk space for external mouse.

So my questions are:

Is there something I can use to thin the spray paint without making the touchpad even less responsive?

OR--

Is there a utility somewhere that enables me to set ridiculously high sensitivity levels for touchpads (the built-in Synaptics driver has this setting but it's not very effective)

OR--

Is there a (cheap) way to replace the touchpad without taking apart the whole laptop?
BTW, the laptop is the Dell XPS M140, if that helps.

Any advice would be immensely appreciated -- thanks in advance🙂

 

[w00t]

why would you buy a laptop from a guy who paints it a glossy black spraypaint. wait did you buy it? you might want to try paint thinner

 

[Steaksauce]

Wait, he painted over the touchpad? What a weirdo.

 

[Jiggz]

See if you can find tape with a strong adhesive (duct tape maybe) and press it hard against the painted touchpad and see if it will peel it off. Paint thinner could work but it could also melt some part of the laptop.

 

[w00t]

Originally posted by: Jiggz
See if you can find tape with a strong adhesive (duct tape maybe) and press it hard against the painted touchpad and see if it will peel it off. Paint thinner could work but it could also melt some part of the laptop.

I dont think it would melt it but i'd be worry about it taking off the silver paint that was on it before. but maybe you could send it in to a place that paints laptops and stuff and actually get a good paintjob maybe back to silver.