IBook G3/ Trackpad Issues/ HDD

Well, I got the OS to work about a few weeks back from reinstalling it, but theres another problem that I'd like to see if it can be fixed.
For a refresher, I purchased this iBook used off eBay and it formerly belonged to a school district in North Carolina. I believe that I am the third owner and the machine is pretty well used (casing kinda scratched up, etc) but the machine functions fine except now I'm starting to get some constant trackpad issues.
The issue is that after the machine has been used for about five minutes or more, the trackpad will start responding incorrectly. It is like my mouse cursor will start floating to the sides of the screens and doesn't wish to stay with my finger patterns. Now, this has been an issue since I bought it however now that I'm looking into putting this machine into actual use I'd like to try and resolve it.
I have a USB Mouse that I will plug in and the mouse works fine. Sometimes when I plug in the USB mouse and unplug it the trackpad acts like normal for a few minutes then goes back to acting abnormally until I restart. There has been periods of times that it seems like the iBook's trackpad will start working again, but as said.. it's very inconsistent.
If possible I'd like to fix this without going into extensive repairs. The trackpad does not appear to be damaged or have any scratches on it, but I cannot verify this machines history as said.
Off topic from the question but the hard drive is also kind of loud in this machine (original 10GB HDD).. when the machine goes to sleep or turns off the hard disk after being idle, its virtually silent. Should I be worried about this?
Thanks again for the assistance!
Jake

It could be that the trackpad isn't securely connected. This isn't so likely since it does work sometimes, but it's worth mentioning.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=1034519#1034519

Similar Messages

IBook G4 not seeing HDD.

My iBook G4 800 had been getting a bit slow at starting up and shutting down. Then a couple of weeks ago it started up displaying a message about the clock having been reset, almost as if I had reset the PMU. About ten minutes later there was smoke coming out the vent and it went dead!
I dismantled the iBook and discovered that the inverter cable/reed switch had been rubbing on the hinge. The cable appears to have shorted against the chassis hence the dry ice machine impression.
I replaced the cable this afternoon but the iBook cannot see the HDD. I tried the hardware test disk and it just states 'Mass Storage - Passed'. Typing "devalias" in the open firmware shows the device but typing "dir hd:\" and I get a device not found kind of error.
I removed the drive and fitted it to an external cradle which I then hooked up to my iMac. The drive seems fine and I was able to copy the important stuff from it.
After returing the drive to the iBook I used the OSX install disc and ran Disk Utility. But it didn't see the drive so there was no way to initilise the drive.
I'm at my wits end now, do anyone have any other suggestions? I am thinking about ordering a replacement IDE cable as a last resort.
Any further advice would be appreciated.

Cantobellus:
So I changed out the hard drive and the computer worked fine for 3 days and then it did the same thing.
This seems to suggest that your HDD may not be the problem. Try the old HDD you removed by putting it in a firewire enclosure and connect it to the computer and see if you can boot the computer from it. I experienced a similar issue with a iBook G4 which is detailed in the thread Could it be the logic board?. Your issue may be different, but the thread may give you some ideas for troubleshooting.
Cheers
cornelius

Trackpad issues on Macbook Pro 15"

Hi! I'm experiencing trackpad issues with a Macbook Pro 15" Model A1286. The battery had recently swollen after a long and productive life of about 5 years. Assuming this was a fair life/usage for a battery I have ordered a replacement from Apple.
While waiting for the replacement battery and following advice from other users, I removed the battery and have the power lead connected to prevent damage from the swollen battery. However, the trackpad now only appears to work the cursor movements around the screen and does not register clicks without the battery in place - it's as if it's got nothing to push against. I'm guessing that the swollen battery may have caused damage to the trackpad, but won't know until the new battery arrives.
Do I just need to be patient and wait for it's arrival or are there any suggestions of how to rectify this please?
Thanks in advance for your advice.

Be paticent.
You can try a SMC reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Follow the directions that apply to your machine regarding battery, remove or don't remove yourself.
Try with a USB mouse in the mean time.

Trackpad issues on Macbook Pro, new June 2009

I have been unable to resolve a trackpad issue that began this afternoon on my Macbook Pro. The computer was new in June. I was playing an online computer game, and it seemed that drag was locked on even though I hadn't changed any settings. Movements of the mouse dragged the window. The drag would not release with 1 click, 2 finger click etc. When I tried typing, the letters selected and replaced as soon as I typed new ones. After several restarts with the same behavior occurring, I reloaded the Snow Leopard 10.6 OS. I originally installed it about 2 weeks ago, and it has been working fine until now. After the reinstallation, the trackpad will not register most clicks of the trackpad. It will register taps, but it refuses to let the user click and drag. I have Microsoft Vista installed in Boot Camp and the trackpad is operating with the same glitches on boot camp. Clicks of the trackpad do not register most of the time. If they do, I have to click very hard, and even then it doesn't always work.

Be paticent.
You can try a SMC reset:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Follow the directions that apply to your machine regarding battery, remove or don't remove yourself.
Try with a USB mouse in the mean time.

Is apple going to fix the magic trackpad issue with Autocad zoom/pan soon? It only started happening when I updated to Yosemite

is apple going to fix the magic trackpad issue with Autocad zoom/pan soon?
It only started happening when I updated to Yosemite
I am using macbook pro 15" Retina

Although it not only bothers me but alot of other photo booth users aswell

What happened to the huge thread on trackpad issues?

There was a huge thread I has a subscription to with hundreds of replies and thousands of views on the problems especially with Early 2008 MacBook/Pro with erratic cursor movements, hypersensitive scrolling and lack of tap-functionality with the Bootcamp drivers.
I can no longer find the thread nor am I still subscribed. Yet except for a patch that is only for Late 2008 laptops and a hacked version of the patch from a user that never fixed any of the problems on my machine, there has no been no updated driver from Apple.
What's the deal?

What problems with trackpad issues? There are none! Haha... Just Kidding...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1433222&tstart=45

Trackpad Issue - Please Help!

Hi there,
Hope you can help me out here.
I've recently purchased a 15" i7 Macbook pro. The machine is but 3 weeks old &, of course, very well looked after.
A few days ago, the built-in trackpad started behaving eratically. Cursor moving by itself, not responding to touch, clicking and opening things involuntarily. Not good at all. Many users seem to have had this exact same issue.
These problems seemed to miraculously stop after a few re-boots and possibly a software update? I really couldn't tell you what resolved the problem.
Unfortunately I now have a totally different problem.
There is a thin, possibly 8 to 10mm horizontal strip across the centre of the trackpad that no longer responds to touch. If I move my finger from the botom of the trackpad upwards (or vice versa), the cursor will stop momentarily as it passes over the horizontal strip. The buttons are fine and the rest of the trackpad is fine. For the moment, I've increased the cursor acceleration so that I can at least navigate round the screen with a smaller area of the trackpad. USB magic mouse seems to work fine.
If anyone else has experienced this &/or found a solution for this issue, please help me out here. I have rifled through endless threads about MBP trackpad issues with little success & do not live close to an apple store/genius bar.
This is a 3 week old machine that cost me a small fortune. To be getting software/hardware issues so early on in it's lifespan is really rather worrying for the future.
Appreciate your help here.
J

I'm not sure what caused this, but I extended my lunch break and drove the machine down to the Westfield apple store. I didn't have an appointment with the Genius Bar but I managed to persuade one of the staff to speak to a technician in the workshop. She came back into the store and told me that they had replacement trackpads and that , considering the machine was only 3 weeks old, the technicians kindly sandwiched the repair into their timetable at zero cost. 2 Hours later, I now have a perfectly functioning trackpad/machine.
I can't thank them enough.
My only gripe is that I couldn't speak to a technician to find out what the problem was, how they resolved it or what causes these issues for future reference. Understanding why these problems occur often helps to build your own framework of understanding. Most of the threads i've read about trackpad issues are largely unresolved with people only speculating the problem/solution.
The initial issue I had with the trackpad's erratic behaviour seemed to be a well known problem that many are associating with a trackpad firmware update. Unless by pure coincidence I had an immediate & major hardware fault after it, which is unlikely, my personal guess is that the two issues were related.

(Not a) Trackpad Issue

I don't know what to call this issue and it's a sort of trackpad issue but not really. When I rest my palm on the sides of the computer off of the trackpad (no my thumb and no part of my hand is on the trackpad) I can still select things as if I were using the trackpad or as if I hit ctrl-select. I can even do it one fingered.
The real problem arises when in the middle of typing my hand hits on those areas because it will sometimes select whole pieces of text and then I'll hit a letter or space and it will wipe it all out. I had this problem when I first got it but I assumed it was because I wasn't used to such a wide trackpad. Others have had this problem when using my mac but I've chalked it up to new mac users. However after the problem getting worse recently I realized it's not me.
The trackpad isn't fabulous in general and I can't always get this straightened out. I couldn't get an appointment with the genius bar until Friday and the people at the Apple Store thought I was crazy and kept asking if I had some part of my hand on the trackpad. I happened to experiment when I was in Best Buy and it appears their model does it too but isn't nearly as sensitive as mine is.
I would love to know if others have this and if you've found fixes (don't want to give up my laptop, I need it, for a repair). Also what would I search for for others with similar problems.

P.S. I can't move the arrow around the screen with the areas not on the trackpad I can only select in these area.

Strange iBook G3 battery issue

I have an iBook G3 FireWire model which won't recognise its battery. It displays as 5% charged with the "fully charged" icon next to it and the menu saying "Calculating... until full." Unplugging the computer will force it to shut down. The computer's optical drive is broken, so I had to install Tiger via USB. The first time, it worked just fine, charging the battery as normal. The problem arose when I installed some updates (I think it was the 10.4.11 Combo updater) and shut down. Upon restart, it never reached the "Starting Mac OS X" screen, just staying on a light blue screen with a perpetually spinning wheel. After attempting multiple restarts, I unplugged the computer while it was on said screen, and it lost all power just as it does now. I reinstalled Tiger with the same USB and disk image the next day. Both http://reviews.ebay.com/iBook-Clamshell-Battery-Issue?ugid=10000000007193925 and booting into Open Firmware and entering the commands reset-nvram, then set-defaults, then reset-all yield the same result: it will charge to 13%, then stop and say "Calculating... until full." The charger is known to be working, it charges my PowerBook just fine.

The typical lifespan of a lithium-ion battery is two to three years. Some last a little longer; some don't even last that long.
It needs a new battery.
Which exact iBook model is it?
You can choose from this list:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/ibook/index-ibook.html
It would seem that it is recognizing the battery; it's just not charging. If an iBook doesn't recognize the battery, there will be an X through the battery icon in the menu bar and the System Profiler wouldn't give you the battery information; it would say "Battery Installed: No".

2011 13" MBP Trackpad issue

I have a month-old 13" MBP. I've noticed that the trackpad often has problems differentiating between one finger and two finger gestures. Specifically, often while attempting to scroll with two fingers, it simply moves the cursor out of position as with a typical one-finger gesture.
In playing around the with trackpad tonight, I discovered that while acting up, if I add a third finger, it senses a 'second' finger and scrolls. If I lift my fingers and put them back down, it almost always senses properly again.
FWIW, I also have a 15" unibody that I use for presentations several times a week (i like the bigger screen for presenter notes, previews, etc.), and have been a mac laptop user for 15+ years, starting with my Powerbook Duo around '95, so I have an idea of the feel of the trackpad. The settings on both the 13" and the 15" are identical, so it's not a settings problem.
So I guess my question is:
Is this most likely a hardware, software or firmware issue, and is there anything that can be reset that might help the issue? It's intermittent, not constant, but probably happens at least once every 2-3 minutes while surfing.
Thanks for the help!

Well I've trying to figure out some other trends with this trackpad issue and have discovered this: If my fingers are within 1/4 -3/8" of one another while two-finger scrolling, it works fine. If they are more than 1/2" apart while attempting the same, it only picks up one of the points of contact and interprets the gesture as simply moving the cursor. My 15" MBP doesn't react that way at all.
Any ideas?

Weird trackpad issue. OSX?

This is strange and possibly a tad petty, but I cant get my trackpad tracking sensativity anything less than full. Whenever I go into System Preferences to change it, it always sets itself back to full when I close the window. Is there some sort of memory file that resets it when I close the window? Ideas?

Are you having problems with your trackpad while typing? My pointer moves around like crazy while typing. The four corners are suppose to be dead while typing but arent!
I have had two SR MBPs captured with this issue and other issues! The thing that piXXed me off was that with the first capture they ignored the trackpad issue so in goes the second one.
I feel so used...
frank

When is 10.6.3 coming and will it fix the trackpad issues????

I have been researching this issue since I purchased my new unibody in Jan 2010. Needless to say, I have not found a permanent solution for any of these trackpad related issues.
Before the unibody I had the MBP aluminum for 2 years and never had a single trackpad issue. These issues are definitely intermittent/sporadic and I cannot seem to narrow the trackpad problems down to one particular application.
Here are the issues I've been encountering and I would certainly like to see Apple respond to our requests ASAP.
-Trackpad clicks don't always register.
-3 & 4 finger gestures stop working at random. **temporary fix offered by majicman here**
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10570452
-trackpad movement/scrolling sporadicly becomes unresponsive. Dead zones on the trackpad.
-cursor jumps (rarity for me, but from what I've read it's common for other users.)
-*when clicking on a file in the finder window, a single click often registers as a double click and instead of highlighting the file, a single click opens the file.* *This is my biggest issue**
Don't know about you guys, but I didn't spend $2600 on a notebook computer to encounter these annoyances...I could have bought (3) PC notebooks for the cost of this MBP Unibody and I expect that Apple will hold up their end of the bargain by making this a superior product!
Please show us some support Apple and fix these bugs!!
Thanks,
Mike

Here's my voodoo fixes:
~Delete contents of ~/Library/Preferences (I've accumulated a lot of junk there)
~Delete contents of ~/Library/Caches and contents of /Library/Caches
~Reinstall 10.6.3 v1.1 Combo Updater
~Repair permissions
~Reset PRAM/SMC
~Put computer to sleep and then wake it up
Don't insert any external USB mice etc in the meantime.
See if it works.

Flickering display, aluminum clamshell, trackpad issues

Our display flickers on one side and has multicolored vertical bars running down the left side at best, or the whole screen greys out over the top of the graphical display, is physically no longer fully attached on that side near the hinge (you can press it down quite a bit after it has been closed), and the aluminum clamshell seems like it's warped. The bottom access panel has become no longer a smooth fit - it sticks up a few millimeters at the gap instead of being flat. We used to be able to hold the back left side and the screen would work, now we have been sitting it on a wooden structure with a back support and pushing it against that so we can see the screen for the past year or two. Now the flickering vertical bars are getting worse and the wooden support doesn't always work, and as an added bonus, the trackpad recently stopped working (it no longer 'clicks' and acts like it's constantly pressed down, so we have to use an external mouse with it). It's pretty frustrating because we've babied this thing (it's never been dropped or abused and has only left the house like twice, and one of those times was to take it in to see about this very problem!) and it seems like it's a manufacturing defect, but of course we never had AppleCare and this powerful expensive beast is now a desktop computer with a super hard to see screen. I've been told we need to pay $400 to get a whole new clamshell. Not happy.

You really should take your battery out, it sounds like it is bloated !!!!!!
I have the same computer as your's but never experienced any warping in the hinge area. There are do it yourself ways on replacing your screen which may be more cost effective but time consuming. You have the option of just leaving it always in clamshell mode and getting an external monitor.
But since your computer is just like mine, I would assume that your battery gets bloated just like mine, and if you've never replaced it in the four years it's been around then you most definitely have one. Be very careful with it. Call your local apple store to see if they have a battery recycling plan. Don't just throw it out.
Since you've stated that you mainly use your computer as a desktop device, I might suggest that you just don't use the battery or get a replacement, rather you should just plug it in, sans battery, and literally use it as a desktop.
You'll also find replacing/taking out the battery will fix your trackpad issue.
Sorry to hear that you've been having such bad luck with your machine. I've successfully frankensteined mine to keep me going for a couple more years! *knocks on wood*

HP Envy trackpad issues

Hi, I hope this problem can be fixed without having to return my laptop. I bought an HP Envy about a week ago and I've been having issues with the touchpad/trackpad or whatever you'd like to call it. My product number is E1P04AAR. The touchpad just simply doesn't behave. It's not precise, it rarely lets me right click, sometimes only clicking it works and sometimes only tapping it works. It jumps around sometimes for no reason at all. This is really bothering me and I hope someone could please help me out or tell me what to do. Thank you.

Hi hamdiabdi, welcome to the HP Forums. I understand that your TouchPad is acting erratically.
Maybe "Adjusting TouchPad or ClickPad pointing sensitivities in Windows 8", "Turning all TouchPad gestures off and on in Windows 8" and "Troubleshooting when TouchPad does not work in Windows 8" will have useful steps to try from this document: Using and Troubleshooting the TouchPad or ClickPad (Windows 8)
Let me know if any of those steps help
TwoPointOh
I work on behalf of HP
Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom to say “Thanks” for helping!

HP ENVY m6 Notebook PC trackpad issue even after HP repair

2 weeks ago i sent my HP ENVY m6 Notebook to the HP Repair center because i was having major issues with the trackpad. It would not move fluidly,and click, and move on its own.
I received my laptop back today anticipating that everything would work perfectly but some of these same issues are still occuring. The touchpad and the cable that connects it were both replace and the laptop was wiped clean.
The toucpad will work for sometime then all of a sudden become glitchy. This is really effecting my usage of the computer. It is a huge inconvenience to pay for a laptop and have a major component malfunctioning. I'm currently using a wireless mouse again.
Since the hardware was replace is there a software problem. This sems to be occuring to so many people.
What is going on?

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/support-search.html?tab=1#/qryterm=HP%20ENVY%20m6%20Notebook&search_search...
1. Please click on the above shown link and select the exact notebook model
2. Select the exact and relevant Operating System for your notebook
3. Click on Driver - Keyboard, Mouse and Input Devices
4. Please download and install the Touchpad Drivers on your Notebook
Hope this helps, for any further queries reply to the post and feel free to join us again
"I work for Hewlett-Packard"
* * * * * Click the "Purple Thumbs Up Icon in the lower right corner of a post" to say thanks * * * * *
* * * * * Please mark Accept As Solution if it solves your problem * * * * *
Regards,
K N R K

IBook G3/ Trackpad Issues/ HDD

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for