Old Powerbook track pad stopped working

[Simon Liquid]

My sister has an old Powerbook 12 inch 867 Mhz. Recently, the track pad stopped responding to anything at all. The keyboard works and plugged in mice work just fine. I know some Powerbooks had trouble with track pads failing but I believe that was a few years later. Also, I saw a site where someone with a 15 inch Powerbook complained that the cable for the pad was pinched by the case. Anyway, this is an old computer that we're up for trying just about anything on (short of spending real money) since we consider it pretty much worthless without it. Any suggestions?

867 mhz G4
640MB RAM
60 GB HD
Mac OS X 10.4.11

 

[BlueRevolution]

Does the trackpad work if you unplug the mouse?

 

[Simon Liquid]

Does the trackpad work if you unplug the mouse?

No. The trackpad has no response under any circumstances I have seen. To be clear, both the tracking area and the button aren't working.

 

[BlueRevolution]

Just to double-check, the "ignore trackpad when mouse is present" option is not checked? It could be recognizing a mouse when none is present, although why it should do so I've no idea.



(My iBook is configured to ignore trackpad input.)

 

[Simon Liquid]

Now that is interesting. There is no Trackpad tab in the Keyboard and Mouse prefpane. Also, I can't find a reference to the trackpad in the System Profiler, although I think this may have had ADB for the trackpad and I can't think where Tiger system profiler would show that.

Thanks for your help so far. I just got my hands on this machine and I'll keep poking at it and let you know if I notice anything else.

EDIT: That's a red herring. I fired up an even older g3 iBook running Panther and couldn't find anything in system profiler about the trackpad on that either.

 

[Str8edgepunker]

The pinched trackpad problem was with the old Titaniums.

BTW, it wouldn't have had ADB for the trackpad. ADB has long since gone the way of the dinosaur.