How to Disable the Touchpad on an HP Laptop? 5 Simple Ways

Even though the touchpad allows us to interact with the Operating System using our fingertips, sometimes it can be a total distraction. It’s true, especially when using the keyboard and your palm accidentally comes into contact with the touchpad, causing the cursor to move to a different location.

Disabling the touchpad can be very helpful in such scenarios, especially when you already have a physical mouse connected to your laptop and don’t want any accidental input from the touchpad. Having said that, I have compiled several ways to disable the touchpad on your HP laptop.

Laptop Built-In Functions

Disabling the touchpad on HP laptops is pretty simple—it just does double tap on the LED in one corner of the mousepad.

On some HP models, there may be a curved dent on the touchpad. Double tab on this hidden dent to disable the touchpad. The LED should light up, indicating that the touchpad is locked.

Also, check if any of the function keys at the top of the keyboard have a crossed touchpad icon, as shown in the figure. If yes, press Fn key + crossed touchpad icon button.

When disabled, you will see a touchpad icon with a straight line on the screen, indicating that the touchpad is disabled.

Some HP laptops may lack an LED or have a hidden dent in a corner, or may not even have a key to disable the touchpad. If so, you can try disabling the touchpad from Windows settings.

Through Windows Settings

Windows allows you to change settings on internal devices such as the camera, microphone and touchpad through Windows Settings. So, you can easily disable the touchpad via Windows settings.

Press Windows key + I. In Settings, open it Bluetooth & devices > touchpads. Here, disable Touchpad. If you only want to disable the touchpad when the mouse is connected to the laptop, click the drop-down menu in Touchpad. Deselect Leave the touchpad active while the mouse is connected.

Via Mouse Properties

Alternatively, you can also disable the touchpad via mouse properties. However, this setting may not be available on all HP laptops. You can only do this on HP Notebooks with the Synaptics Touchpad driver installed.

Press Windows key + R. Here, type main.cpl and press Enter. After window Mouse Properties open, go to tab touchpadsor Device Settings. Click deactivate. You can also disable the touchpad while the mouse is connected by activating Disable the internal pointing device when an external USB pointing device is attached. Click apply Then Okay.

Through Device Manager

Device Manager contains information about all the devices connected to the motherboard. And with this, you can also disable the touchpad.

When you disable the touchpad from device manager, you cannot access its settings in Windows settings.

Press the Windows key and X at the same time and open Device Manager. Expand Human Interface Devices. Double click HID compatible touchpad and open tabs Drivers. If you cannot find the touchpad driver in Human Interface Devices, navigate to Mice and other pointing devices > Synaptic Port PS/2 TouchPad and go to the Drivers tab. Choose Turn off the device. Click Yes when asking for confirmation.

Via BIOS Setup

BIOS registers all the hardware components connected to the motherboard and also allows the user to change their properties. In our case, you can use it to disable the touchpad.

Turn off the PC completely. Turn on the PC and repeatedly press the button F10 to enter the BIOS on the HP laptop. Open tabs Advanced and set Internal pointing device to disabled. If you don’t have this option, select an option Default device. Here, uncheck it touchpads.

Notes: The steps mentioned above may differ depending on your HP laptop model. You will need to navigate through the BIOS if you cannot find an option to disable the touchpad using the method described above.

When you disable the touchpad from BIOS, the motherboard won’t use it. This means the OS will not detect the touchpad and you can only re-enable it from the BIOS.