hmm. also:

[fox]

Also, hmm, the touchpad on my computer is lately both more and less sensitive than I'd like it to be. That is: I can only track with the actual trackpad, of course, but there are times when hardly any pressure at all on the entire bottom half of the keyboard half of the laptop - sometimes no pressure at all, by which I mean, it is not even sitting on my lap, it's on a neutral surface with nothing touching it - convinces the thing that I've clicked on something, so all tracking becomes dragging, and it takes several minutes of careful coaxing and judicious tapping of things for recalibration/rebalancing purposes to convince it that I haven't selected anything at all.

I removed the hardshell case the computer has been living in all this time and that helped a lot - apparently the pressure it needed to hold on was causing a lot of the trouble - but now it's a naked laptop and still experiencing this issue.

The computer is two and a half years old, and there are two small cracks in the plastic on the inside of the bottom of the keyboard half. (Just down by the rim, I mean - but obviously near to the pressure-sensitive stuff.) I would not like to have to replace it, as my life is full of other expenses right now (lots of curling stuff this year, also summer vacation, but mainly dental work), but if this is only going to get worse, I might have to think about it.

Any thoughts?

Comments

[mrshamill]

It's a laptop, yes? Uninstall the touchpad drivers. You don't need them, and they often cause more harm than good.

Check in add-remove programs, and look for something like Alps Touchpoint or something similar.

That would be my first guess. After that... it might be the plastic impeding the pad itself.

[fox]

It's a Mac. Without the touchpad I have nothing. :-/ I think it probably is the plastic. I'll try to remember to call the Geniuses some time this week, but likely as not I'll end up with a new computer somewhere around birthday time. le sigh.

(Thanks, though.)