macbook pro trackpad not responding

[ramonathebrave]

Hi! I opened up my macbook pro today to find that the trackpad suddenly, randomly was not working. The cursor only responds to touch on the very top and bottom edges. The entire middle section does not respond to my fingers no matter what I do. However, I can click anywhere on the trackpad and it still works (except the very top edge, but I'm thinking that's normal)! I just cannot move the cursor around.

The only thing that I did to the computer was move it from room to room. Nothing has been spilled on it. I tried blowing a little compressed air around the edges, as well as cleaning them out with the corner of a piece of paper. I also tried holding the macbook at different angles and clicking/shaking/tapping it gently to try to dislodge any debris.

I think i bought this computer about 2011. It is a 13 inch macbook pro. It is the unibody design where you can't take the battery out.

Please help! I don't live anywhere near an apple store, nor do I have any desire to enter that high tech hellscape! I'd rather fix it myself if I can.

Thanks!!!!

 

[Kaveman]

Have you done a full restart?

 

[ramonathebrave]

I turned it off and on again, if that is what you mean!

(Thanks for replying!)

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

I would double check finger swipe settings in system preferences/ track pad.

 

[ramonathebrave]

Sadly, I did check the trackpad settings to make sure nothing was really out of whack.

I tried to reset the SMC today. Turned the laptop off, used the shift+ctrl+alt+power button method that is supposed to work for this computer, but nothing happened. I will try a different method to see if that helps...

One more thing I noticed is that the cursor responds much better to my touch if I close the laptop and then open it again. It still does not work normally, but the top part of the trackpad is functional enough that I can use it. It only helps for a few minutes, though.

The trackpad also does not respond to multi finger input, ever, even though those settings are enabled. However, the cursor sometimes has a mind of its own. sometimes it will act as though I just did a multi finger swipe, even when I'm not touching the trackpad at all. If I leave the cursor still to watch a video or something, the cursor still jumps around the screen a bit.

 

[oldscribe]

Hi,

Could be hardware, but I feel a reinstal of OS X might correct the issue, back up all your date first.

Also before you do this which OS X are you running?

 

[john munday]

Hi The battery might be expanding ,putting pressure on the underside of the trackpad.Thats what caused my2007 pre unibody track pad to stop working.