Acer Synaptics Touchpad - Finding Internal PS/2 port in Device Manager

I just had to replace the top cover, including touchpad, on an Acer 5741 running Windows 7 64 Home Premium, because the old cover had cracked near the hinge. The new cover appears identical to the old one, and everything works, but the symantics touchpad software doesn't recognize the touchpad as a touchpad; it shows as a "wheel mouse on PS/2 port". Therefore, I can't turn off the incredibly annoying "tap to click" function. The option to disable tap to click is grayed out... it appears that's because the touch pad is seen as a "mouse" not a touch pad, as it was before.

When no drivers are installed, Device Manager just sees it as a PS2 Mouse. When drivers are installed, Device Manager sees it as Synaptics PS/2 Port Touchpad.

The OS is entirely up to date. I have tried the latest Synaptics drivers, I have tried using the original driver version that came with the laptop, and I have tried a couple of versions in between. I have repeatedly uninstalled the "touchpad" or "mouse" in device manager, and have also uninstalled and reinstalled drivers.

Yesterday I tried removing the laptop's keyboard to expose the ribbon cable that connects the touchpad to the board underneath. I thought that if I disconnected and reconnected the cable, that device manager might see the touchpad AS a touchpad, rather than as a mouse. No luck. I tried this with the computer powered up in Windows, and Windows never identified that I had disconnected the touchpad, although of course it didn't function with the ribbon cable disconnected. It worked again when I reconnected it, but again, no "reaction" from Windows to either action.

I"m now wondering if I can "uninstall" the PS/2 port (which I guess is the connector, not a traditional PS/2 port like on the back of a PC) in device manager, restart, and hope the computer then reinstalls the PS/2 port and recognizes it as having a touchpad connected?

My question after the long post above, is which listing under "device manager" actually represents the PS/2 port? Is the port itself (not the mouse or pointing device) under "System Devices" somewhere? Or is it under "Universal Serial Bus Controllers" somewhere? Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I identify this port in the device manager?

Thanks!

Thanks TV... I had to replace the top cover, that includes the touchpad. I tried the other drivers just to be sure, they didn't work. I also checked the hardware ID under Device Manager without the drivers installed and it still indicated synaptics as the manufacturer (the website magicdriver.com can suggest drivers based on that hardware ID).

I have installed and uninstalled the touchpad under "mouse" and tried every version of drivers, synaptics and others, without success so far.

I determined that the touchpad in the replacement top cover was from Elantech. Even when deleting the Synaptics drivers under "uninstall programs" and deleting the driver in device manager along with the "PS/2 mouse" the device ID code implies that the hardware manufacturer is Synaptics. I downloaded the "Acer" versions of all three manufacturers' drivers from the Acer support page, then extracted them all to separate directories. I then installed and uninstalled them all.

The key was to use "Update Driver" from within Device Manager to get them to properly install. Don't unzip and try to use any of the files in the directory to install the drivers. That was hours of my life I'll never get back!