Faulty Synaptics Touchpad Driver on Split x2 13-m121sa Causing Freezing and Mouse Unresponsiveness

Question

Edit: I found a solution, scroll further down. I have been having problems with my new Split x2 similar to those already explained in the forums by other users. The symptoms are as follows:
1. Unusual hanging or freezing of the mouse pointer on the screen and temperamental use of gestures (two finger scrolling, zooming, etc.)
2. Slowing down of computer generally; acting sluggish and freezing during only light use and/or after screen being closed.
The symptoms seems to change depending on the length of time the computer has been switched on, and are affected by disconnecting/reconnecting the screen from the dock.
Being quite good with these things I decided to investigate and have uncovered the following:
The root cause of both of these problems is the Synaptics Touchpad driver. While the newest version (17.0.10.9) available from the HP website seems to solve any unusual freezing of the pointer it has a significant memory leak. In other words, as you move the pointer around the touchpad uses up the computer's memory. This is normal, but the problem is that the driver for the touchpad does not give the memory back; it cannot be reallocated. This means after a couple of hours of using the computer (or having the screen closed) the memory reaches saturation point and the computer grinds to a halt. If you are having the same problem have a look for yourself: Open task manager and look at the performance tab. Under the Memory heading you will see a value for 'Non-paged pool'. With the computer idle this number shouldn't increase, but move the mouse around and you will see it gradually go up without returning. I have confirmed this to be the Synaptics driver by using the Windows tool poolmon.exe - the culprits are Irp and SynT. Regarding solutions, I have tried many - but there is no absolute fix.
You can uninstall the Synaptics Touchpad driver and the problem will go away - no more freezing or high memory usage. But without the driver the computer reverts to using the standard Windows driver - therefore there is no multitouch gestures like scrolling or zooming.
I have tried installing the generic Synaptics driver available from their website, and the computer won't allow it. Regardless of this, I forced the driver install but the generic driver does not work with this Touchpad anyway (Error code 10). I have tried the latest version (17.0.19) and an older one (16.2.21) with no success. Even earlier versions (e.g. 15.x.x) refuse to run on the grounds of incompatibility. HP Support suggest a system 'refresh' back to factory setting, but apart from the huge inconvenience of time and losing files - I know this won't work either. Apparently a clean install has worked for one user - but for this you need a Windows install disc or USB which I do not have - and I'm sceptical that it would work anyway.
So now I'm using the standard Windows touchpad driver without being able to scroll, zoom or use the swipe-in gestures of Windows 8.1.
If a HP representative is reading this, I would strongly suggest that this problem be escalated. A simple update from Synaptics could solve this problem which is causing people's computers to freeze up and wasting your support staff's time.
TL;DR: HP's Touchpad driver is faulty and causes a memory leak. Synaptics own generic drivers do not work. And Windows standard drivers are unsatisfactory.

Answer 1

SOLVED!
Through my own research I have found a solution. While the official newest driver listed under this model is 17.0.10.9 there is in fact a newer version which does not have this problem: version 17.0.10.16!
I am still disappointed that HP didn't suggest this solution themselves, considering this driver was published back in November 2013! HP if you're reading this: please allocate this driver to this model in your support pages. Anyway, the solution is as follows:
1. Open the Device Manager (Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Device Manager)2. Under 'Mice and other pointing devices' open 'Synaptics HID TouchPad'3. In the 'Driver' tab click on 'Uninstall'4. The pointer will disappear - reboot the computer5. Download the new driver from here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?cc=uk&lc=en&softwareitem=ob-127354-1(if this link goes down try searching online for 'synaptics driver 17.0.10.16')6. Open and install the driver I hope this helps. HP, please send my consulation fee via PayPal(!)