Where could the touchpad's setting be saved?

[Bellzemos]

Hello!

I have posted this on a couple of hardware forums and got no good answers, now I remembered this lovely forum where I got help many times, with Thinkpad related stuff. This is not Thinkpad related, but I think you guys might just figure this one out.

I have an older (2010) Sony VAIO laptop (F13 series) with an integrated Alps touchpad. Laptop came with Windows 7 and a bunch of VAIO software, one program was VAIO Control Center, where the touchpad could be set to eihter Enabled (the default mode - it was enabled when I bought it and it's the default setting in the program) or to Disabled.

Soon after I got the laptop (that's now over 10 years ago), I set the touchpad to disabled because I was always using an external mouse. The laptop does not have a Fn key to enable/disable the touchpad. And now it gets interesting.

I didn't really need the old laptop anymore since I got a new computer, but I formatted it and installed Windows 10 on it anyway. But, the touchpad stayed disabled. I went in the BIOS but there's not settings there for the touchpad, I've upgraded the BIOS to the latest version and also reset BIOS to default settings, of course nothing helped - touchpad was still disabled when I booted into Windows 10.

So I tried all the driveres I could find, but that didn't help either. Then I did a "low level format" (filled with zeroes) of the laptop's HDD. Then installed Windows 10 anew. Installed drivers. Nothing, touchpad is still dead. Then I installed Linux on the laptop, but the touchpad was still dead, always had to use an external mouse.

And now, not long ago, I found the old drivers CD which came with the VAIO when I bought it. This time I installed Windows 7 on the laptop, then all the drivers from the CD, also the VAIO Control Center software. But the touchpad still didn't work! Then I run the VAIO Control Center. When it opened up I went to the touchpad settings section and the setting was already set to default - Enabled. And yes, NOW the touchpad started working, after years of trying to make it work.

I then removed Windows 7 and installed Windows 10 on the laptop again - lo and behold, the touchpad was working, with the default drivers that Windows 10 installed, without the VAIO Control Center software (which is not even supported for Windows 10 anyway). Then I zeroed out the HDD again and booted from a Macrium Reflect (disk imaging software) USB - and the touchpad worked there too. I bet it would work on Linux now too, but didn't try it.

So this made me think, if the setting of the touchpad being enabled or disabled was not saved anywhere on the HDD (I zeroed it out) or in the BIOS (no such setting + I reset the BIOS to defaults anyway), where does the touchpad enabled/disabled setting get saved to? Could it have it's own memory of some sort (like EEPROM)?

I'd really like to know more about this, but I can't find any info about Alps touchpads in VAIO laptops with own memory, or anything on any laptop touchpads with own memory. If anyone knows where I could leanr more about this or just ask about it and get answers, I'd really appreciate it!

Specs:
https://icecat.biz/p/sony/vpcf13s0e-b/v ... 26631.html

Manual (from page 36 onwards, the note about the touchpad at the bottom of page 39 is interesting too):
https://filebin.net/ubulrheewte5ager

This link nicely describes the problem, but doesn't tell where the setting is saved or what kind of memory has the touchpad or what si really going on:
https://www.instructables.com/Disable-T ... r-Clean-W/


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TL DR

I disabled the touchpad of a VAIO laptop via VAIO software, then formatted the HDD and reset the BIOS, but after installing Windows anew, the touchpad was still disabled. I suspect the touchpad has it's own memory to store the setting. Please read above to find out more!

[dr_st]

Your conclusion may very well be correct. Many integrated devices have their own non-volatile memory (sometimes on the device, sometimes integrated in the system firmware image).

Normally the BIOS is supposed to provide the interface to configure settings stored in this memory, but I guess in the case of your Vaio they didn't implement it (which also explains why reloading the BIOS defaults had no effect). Instead, they implemented it in software.

[axur-delmeria]

Two possibilities, both involving non-volatile memory:

1. The setting is stored in non-volatile memory in the system board (some laptop models actually store passwords this way, instead of battery-backed CMOS RAM).

2. The non-volatile memory is in the touchpad's control board itself.

[RealBlackStuff]

From reading your post and the user manual page 39, I assume the touchpad On/Off settings must be somewhere in the mouse settings, which are stored via Device Manager in the registry.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet
The default touchpad-setting in the mouse-driver(?) is most likely Off, meaning if there is no driver, there is no touchpad.

This seems to confirm it: https://www.sony-mea.com/en/electronics ... S500013197

[Bellzemos]

Thank you all for the replies.

It can not be stored in the Windows registry if I have zeroed out the HDD.

What do you mean by system firmware image exactly? Where is it stored?

Non-volatile memory it is then, I guess. I would still love to see the memory-storage on the VAIO's motherboard, and/or read something official about it.