One of my most loved features of some Touchpad drivers are “Disable when another pointing device is connected”. I have been trying for a while to get the same thing running on my XPS, as the touchpad is so big and the keyboard so small, it is almost always an annoyance when you accidentally touch it. Well, today I found a quick solution, albeit a manual one. I have tried GPointing Device Settings, Touchpad Indicator and more, with no success. The configuration tool in Ubuntu only lets me do some tweaks to speeds etc, but not disable the device. Recently it has annoyed me so much that I went the terminal route and wanted to disable it manually with X11. Hit read more if you want the commands.
Simply put, you first need to find the device name. You find that by running this command:

xinput list

On my computer it is a bit treacherous, as there are two names for the touchpad, one of them is the right one and not so easy to guess it is. What I get is this:

Disable the touchpad completely. Both of these options can be accomplished by going to your taskbar and right clicking the Dell Touchpad icon in the notification area, click Touchpad Properties, then adjust the sensitivity settings. Here are some screenshots to illustrate the process. The F3 alone doesn't disable touchpad. Fn+F3 turns on the orange light of the touchpad, but doesn't disable. The erratic cursor is better, sometimes it moves but I don't know if it is coused by my hand when is very close to the touchpad (maybe it becomes more sensitive). I updated everything from Dell. The touchpad is still unable to be disabled. Why did you want to disable the touch screen? I can understand disabling the touchpad if you have a mouse, because touchpad can get in the way of typing, but that's not the case for a screen. I have an XPS 15 9560, and the touch screen runs right up to the edge (within about 3mm).

XPS 13 does not have a hot key to disable the touch pad. However, you can disable it from the touch pad application installed on your system. Right-click the touchpad icon in the taskbar in desktop view. Select Touchpad Properties. Turn Touchpad On or Off as per the need.

⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ ROCCAT ROCCAT Kone Pure id=9 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ ATML1000:00 03EB:842F id=12 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ PS/2 Synaptics TouchPad id=16 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ DLL05E3:01 06CB:2734 id=13 [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)]
↳ ROCCAT ROCCAT Kone Pure id=10 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Integrated Webcam id=11 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=14 [slave keyboard (3)]
↳ Dell WMI hotkeys id=15 [slave keyboard (3)]

This is with a Razor mouse connected as well (ROCCAT KONE), but the correct name is the DLL05E3:01 06CB:2734, but on yours it might be different. Be sure to identify the correct one. So in order to disable it, I just run this command:

xinput –set-prop “DLL05E3:01 06CB:2734” “Device Enabled” 0

To enable it again, you just run this command:

xinput –set-prop “DLL05E3:01 06CB:2734” “Device Enabled” 1

While this isnt the most pretty solution, it works and is fairly easy to maintain. I just copy pasted the command in to a text document, so I can easily copy it over to a terminal window. For quick reference, if you want to paste in to a terminal window, just hit Shift+Ins, not Ctrl+V.

–UPDATE, Oct 18th, 2017–Dell have just started a free battery replacement program for affected laptops. Check the Dell Product Bulletin page and enter your service tag number to see if you can get a free replacement. If you wish to replace the battery yourself, this post will show you how.

I’ve had a Dell XPS 15 (9550) for coming up on 2 years now, and it’s well out of warranty. Recently I noticed the trackpad was getting harder to click and the front edge of the trackpad had been lifted up a little. I originally thought I had something stuck under there. You know; crumbs, food stuff, small creatures of the deep, children. Something like that. But it continued to rise up ever so slowly, to the point I could no longer actually click the trackpad no matter how hard I pushed.

Looking online I found a few posts that described a similar problem. They mentioned that battery swelling causes the problem since the battery is directly under the trackpad.

I opened up the laptop and looked for myself. Sure enough this was the problem so I went and bought a replacement battery from an online seller. Part number 4GVGH or 1P6KD since they’re the same thing. It took about two weeks to arrive and once it did, it was a pretty simple process to swap them over.

Here’s some photos of what I did, in case you have a similar problem.

1. Get upset by the raised front edge of the trackpad

Disable Touchpad On Asus Laptop

1. Buy a screwdriver kit from a local store for A$20. Ensure it has Torx heads as the laptop base uses T-5 screws.

1. Remove the base of the laptop. Don’t forget the two regular screws under the flap. See how the battery is swollen. Remove it by sliding out the power connector (top right, near the + in the picture) and then remove the screws the arrows point to.

1. Feel free to compare the old and new batteries to see just how bad the problem is. The new battery is on the right!

1. Now install the new battery. Don’t forget to be careful and gentle with the power connector on the top right as it’s a little fiddly to get it into the correct position.

Dell Xps 15 Disable Touchpad

1. Put the case back together and you should find your trackpad is (almost) as good as new.

All up, it took me about 15 minutes to shutdown the laptop, open it up, replace the battery, take some photos and put it all back together. The battery even came with a decent amount of charge!

P.S. I should point out the usual things: if you do this yourself you will void your warranty (if any still remains). I’m not responsible for your results, and please remember to dispose of your battery in an environmentally friendly way (recycling centres, battery collection centres, etc.) [updateIf you get your replacement battery from Dell they’ll want you to send the original battery back to them, so no recycling required]

Disable Touchpad Dell Xps 13

Good luck.