Late 08 Trackpad Hard Clicking

[ryannazaretian]

My late 2008 MBP has been experiencing random times where I have to press down really hard (on glass) to get it to click. Obviously hardware related. It makes the "click" noise, but doesn't click on the OS. If I push harder, it picks up a click, but if I let off any pressure, it releases, while still pressed before it "clicks" back to normal.

I'm going to keep using it until it's no longer random because I believe I'll have a hard time convincing Apple to fix a trackpad that is currently working perfectly at the repair center. I don't really care that much right now because I'm mainly on OSX, where tap-to-click works (unlike Windows... which only kind of works)

Anyone else have this issue?

 

[dwdillard]

Yeah- I had a unibody Macbook with the same issue, and my 13" MBP is currently having this issue again. I'm just waiting for school to get out before I take it in to apple to talk about it, since the last time this happened, they kept my Macbook for a month.

 

[jlocalled]

No such issues on a Unibody MacBook Pro 15" from October 2008. It's perfectly fine. I'll assume that you have installed the Trackpad updated from November 2008.

I don't think it would be anywhere near easy to fix it yourself, since parts don't seem to be easily available.

 

[dwdillard]

when I brought my 08 unibody macbook in to the apple store (still covered under warranty) they went through a lot of hoopla- created a new user account, tested to see if it would still have the same issues... Eventually they determined that it was a hardware issue and replaced the trackpad.

of course, that computer's logic board got fried a month after I got it back from being fixed, and so I ended up with the MBP that I have now (and I'm beginning to notice the same trackpad issues...)

 

[ryannazaretian]

Well thanks for the replies. I was just curious if anyone else had the issues.

jlocalled, all updates are installed. It's simply the button not making contact inside. If I had to guess, it's probably a small layer of dust preventing contact. I can usually make it work for a while if I go super crazy with clicking it like 200 times in a minute. It clears out whatever is keeping it from making the connection inside, but then again, the issue comes back later.

 

[ryannazaretian]

Yep, mine's not getting any better now. I'm just getting back from a business trip, and I'm in the airport. I had to use a mouse all weekend because of this flipping thing. Tap to click is my only option right now.