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nickarmadillo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 24, 2003
223
0
St. Louis, MO
My 3 year old Macbook pro recently developed a rather annoying trackpad problem. The button appears to have lost its "tension." There is no longer a crisp click when I press it and it has a hard time registering clicks (especially in the middle of the button, there is slightly more tension on the sides but not much) and occasionally will click on its own. Could there be something stuck underneath the button, or is there a piece that provides the tension for the click that could be broken? Anyone have a similar experience?
 

nickarmadillo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 24, 2003
223
0
St. Louis, MO
Do you know what caused it? I no longer have Applecare :(. I usually use a mouse, so it isn't a big deal right now. However, I travel a lot, so it makes the computer rather difficult to use when I am out. The trackpad button has become almost unusable.
 

Signal-11

macrumors 65816
Mar 23, 2008
1,474
2
2nd Star to the Right
This happened to my 1 year old MBP. The topcase has to be replaced. Unfortunately for me, I think I hit a bad replacement batch.

Anyway, if you're out of AppleCare, you can pick up a new topcase on eBay for under a hundred dollars. Sometimes, even new ones can be had for the $60-75 range if you don't mind minor cosmetic issues on factory seconds. Replacement is super easy.
 

SnowLeopard2008

macrumors 604
Jul 4, 2008
6,772
17
Silicon Valley
Do you know what caused it? I no longer have Applecare :(. I usually use a mouse, so it isn't a big deal right now. However, I travel a lot, so it makes the computer rather difficult to use when I am out. The trackpad button has become almost unusable.

Maybe using a can of compressed air to blow up dust/debris particles? The mechanism weakens with age, which is the main problem. An alternative is using the tap to click feature.
 

glap1922

macrumors regular
Mar 13, 2009
120
0
I had a similar problem on my macbook. I took it apart to see if there was some way to fix it, but I couldn't find anything to fix. Replacing the entire piece seems to be the option.
 

nickarmadillo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 24, 2003
223
0
St. Louis, MO
I found the solution! Hopefully this will help some of the of the others in this thread. It seems that the problem is that the battery in some units is faulty and begins to expand, putting pressure on the trackpad button and causing it to feel "stuck" (as well as a variety of other problems eventually)
 

aprofetto

macrumors 6502a
Dec 19, 2008
544
0
Hamilton, Ontario
I found the solution! Hopefully this will help some of the of the others in this thread. It seems that the problem is that the battery in some units is faulty and begins to expand, putting pressure on the trackpad button and causing it to feel "stuck" (as well as a variety of other problems eventually)

Cool, what'd you do, replace your battery?
 

nickarmadillo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 24, 2003
223
0
St. Louis, MO
Not yet, but that is the plan. For now I can still use my travel mouse until my battery goes dead. It seems that they expansion of my battery began when its health began to deteriorate. According to iStat Pro, my battery health has gone from 98% to 50% in the last couple weeks, which is when my trackpads started.
 
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