[cjscheiner]

The Touch Pad on my Power Book has started to act strangely. Single, double and triple taps on the spring loaded section respond intermittently and erratically, making highlighting and dragging difficult. As far as I can tell my Finder and System preferences have not changed. The Track Pad works fine as far as dragging the cursor across the screen, so I am currently dealing with the problem by enabling the "Click" and "Dragging" features in TrackPad preferences.
Before I bring the PowerBook to a repair shop, which would require me to back up and remove 70GB of personal material from the hard drive, are there any things I can do to see if the problem is mechanical, viral, or CPU related, and curable at home?
Thanks.
Cliff/C.J. Scheiner

[pmfine]

cjscheiner, on 05 March 2012 - 06:35 AM, said:

The Touch Pad on my Power Book has started to act strangely. Single, double and triple taps on the spring loaded section respond intermittently and erratically, making highlighting and dragging difficult. As far as I can tell my Finder and System preferences have not changed. The Track Pad works fine as far as dragging the cursor across the screen, so I am currently dealing with the problem by enabling the "Click" and "Dragging" features in TrackPad preferences.
Before I bring the PowerBook to a repair shop, which would require me to back up and remove 70GB of personal material from the hard drive, are there any things I can do to see if the problem is mechanical, viral, or CPU related, and curable at home?

Hi,

You don't mention the OS but not that important to this process:

Create a new user account that is at admin level and log in and without doing anything else, see if these problems go away. If they do, it was a user level pref file problem and if not, it is due to a corrupted computer wide preference file and not a user account level pref file OR it is hardware related.

You don't mention if you have ever opened it up but if you have or want to, do so carefully and use compressed air to blow out any dust from touch pad or other internal area being careful to not blow too hard on any delicate parts.

I would not bring this to anyone until you do that first. iFixit.com might have take apart info for this unit or other sites too, easy enough to find via Google.

Unless the repair shop does such visits for free or really cheap, i might not bother if it is going to cost you more than $25 or so.

You always need to back up any computer you don't want to risk losing data from but no need to delete it unless you have security issues. Chances are they won't affect the hard drive. Keep in mind if so inclined, security delete levels are necessary if you don't want possible restore and that can take a few days to do.

-Peter

[cjscheiner]

Peter,
Thanks for the suggestions. The computer with the problem is a PowerBook G4 15" 1.5GHz (Aluminum) Model Powerbook 5,4 with OS10.4.11 and Classic (doesn't handle OS9).
The problem occurs no matter what account I log into, in Classic as well as 10.4, and gets worse the longer the computer is on (i.e. the hotter it gets). Resetting PRAM does not help.
Based on what I read at the iFixit site you suggested, this is a problem with the button (solenoid?) under the spring loaded part of the pad. My options seem to be to open the case and clean this, at my peril, or bring it into a reliable repair shop and be prepared to buy a mouse attachment if the repair estimate is too high. Any other thoughts?
Thanks again.
Cliff/C.J. Scheiner

[pmfine]

cjscheiner, on 12 March 2012 - 08:24 AM, said:

Peter,
Thanks for the suggestions. The computer with the problem is a PowerBook G4 15" 1.5GHz (Aluminum) Model Powerbook 5,4 with OS10.4.11 and Classic (doesn't handle OS9).
The problem occurs no matter what account I log into, in Classic as well as 10.4, and gets worse the longer the computer is on (i.e. the hotter it gets). Resetting PRAM does not help.
Based on what I read at the iFixit site you suggested, this is a problem with the button (solenoid?) under the spring loaded part of the pad. My options seem to be to open the case and clean this, at my peril, or bring it into a reliable repair shop and be prepared to buy a mouse attachment if the repair estimate is too high. Any other thoughts?
Thanks again.
Cliff/C.J. Scheiner

If it was me, being relatively "handy", I would risk opening it up IF I was also willing to accept I may not succeed and then need to take it somewhere to be worked on. At that point you humble yourself and hope for the best with proper repair. Just as a perspective, I don't do that kind of work on any recent laptop as I know the value and do not want to botch it. I am handy but since I don't do this kind of stuff much, one loses their touch so you need to be aware of your own level of comfort.

On something older and literally worth little (you can price it out on one of the used macs web site) I have less to lose and it could be replaced with another old model too.

-Peter

[cjscheiner]

Peter,
Here is a follow up to your excellent suggestions. After careful consideration, and remembering what it was like to clean and replace the solinoids in my electronic typewriter, I decided to chicken-out. I have attached a small optical USB mouse (from an eMac) to the PowerBook and I'll live with the results.
Thanks for your continued assistance.
Cliff/C.J. Scheiner