Late 2008 MacBook 13": Could old, swollen, battery affect my touchpad?

Hello all:
Late 2008 13" MacBook, Aluminum, 10.6.8
Symptoms:
For the past 6 months my battery (original from new) fluctuates between 85% and 35% health (iStat Pro), and only holds a charge for 45 minutes, tops.
My model still has the removable battery, underneath the easily removable cover, held with a latching system.
The cover is now not flush with rest of body, bowed slightly outward in the middle along the latch line (inside edge, away from edge of body.)
At about the same time, I noticed that my touchpad has taken on a life of its own, sometimes cursor skitting across the screen, at times all I have to do is touch the trackpad and it responds as if I initiated the "click" function by pushing down.
Today, it just seemed to stop functioning. Moreover, I couldn't even get a forced quit, even with wired mouse plugged in.
Now, the only way I can get a click response is by pushing down HARD on lower center of touchpad. This is new today.
Two-finger scrolling still works fine, it's the click function that has gone wonky.
It's been really hot today!
I've read on other fixit forums that this is a textbook symptom of a swollen battery, and the bulging cover sure seems to indicate this. I just figured that there was 5+ years of gunk and dog hair finding it's way into the contacts of the touchpad, but it looks to be a sealed component.
Before I flip out and take it to the closest MAC repair shop, not easy in southern Spain, and let them mess about with it and wipe out years of data, could it be as easy as replacing the batt?
Can I still find original or reliable OEM batt?
As it also looks like only one screw holds the touchpad in place, and I am WAY out of warranty, can I still find original Mac parts for the touchpad if this needs replacing too?
Many thanks in advance.
Steve
PS: Tomorrow I'm gonna go buy a 1TB USB drive and back up my HD, too!!!

Bryan:
Ever so cool post. I am going into the local Apple Store tomorrow, here in Marbella Spain. I can't imagine they will honor a warranty problem 5.5 years after the fact, lappy bought in NYC, and registered, but sure worth a bit of insistence. I did buy an AppleCare policy back in December 2008. BTW, all, well worth the money!
I did do an experiment by removing the batt, but still plugged in. The access cover closed beautifully and flush, as if nothing wrong, but the trackpad still stiff and only responsive to "click" commands if I pressed HARD in a very small sector, middle bottom (facing the keyboard.)
Once informed, I had a look at the batt, and sure enough, she's bulging in the middle, exactly where the cover bulges. Funny that.
I will give it my best shot, but I can't imagine that Apple would cover replacement of the touch(track)pad after all these years.
How long ago did you report, and get satisfaction, from your similar (identical) problem?
Best,
Steve

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Thanks for all the answer. Please let me to resume this old and interesting discussion.
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Edited by: uncreative on Oct 31, 2008 11:28 AM

Same issue here. Putting darwin ports out of the way did not help.
Running (sqlplus) under gdb gives:
====================================================================
Program received signal EXC_BAD_ACCESS, Could not access memory.
Reason: KERN_PROTECTION_FAILURE at address: 0x00000000
0x014556d4 in mac_shared_library_environ_init_routine ()
(gdb) where
#0 0x014556d4 in mac_shared_library_environ_init_routine ()
#1 0x8fe15a82 in __dyld__ZN16ImageLoaderMachO16doInitializationERKN11ImageLoader11LinkContextE ()
#2 0x8fe0e723 in __dyld__ZN11ImageLoader23recursiveInitializationERKNS_11LinkContextEj ()
#3 0x8fe0e6b5 in __dyld__ZN11ImageLoader23recursiveInitializationERKNS_11LinkContextEj ()
#4 0x8fe0e6b5 in __dyld__ZN11ImageLoader23recursiveInitializationERKNS_11LinkContextEj ()
#5 0x8fe0e809 in __dyld__ZN11ImageLoader15runInitializersERKNS_11LinkContextE ()
#6 0x8fe04102 in __dyld__ZN4dyld24initializeMainExecutableEv ()
#7 0x8fe07b5f in __dyld__ZN4dyld5_mainEPK11mach_headermiPPKcS5_S5_ ()
#8 0x8fe01872 in __dyld__ZN13dyldbootstrap5startEPK11mach_headeriPPKcl ()
#9 0x8fe01037 in __dyld__dyld_start ()
====================================================================
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Culprit machine specs:
2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
One difference between desktop machine that works is that it only has 2 Gigs of mem..
My oci app gives the same error when using oracle client apis (running on culprit laptop).
Edited by: user2331793 on Nov 3, 2008 2:52 AM

I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro, I am trying to run MW3 but it will not work without crashing a few minuets into the game. The general specs on my computer are a dual processor 2.53 ghz. 4 gb ram and a NVIDIA geforce 9400 (9600 is the alternate card)

I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro, I am trying to run MW3 but it will not work without crashing a few minuets into the game. The general specs on my computer are a dual processor 2.53 ghz. 4 gb ram and a NVIDIA geforce 9400 (9600 is the alternate card).
Things to note:
I have been unable to update firmware on this computer for about a year now. Im not sure why.
I am running a bootleg copy of Windows XP on this computer, I would not like to spend $149 to get Windows 7 if possible.
any thoughts on the matter would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Why don't you take your 'old' MBP into your local Apple Store and have them check out everything that's wrong with it - and I mean everything? Then, when you get an estimate about how much it would cost to get the machine completely repaired, ask about the Apple flat-rate repair pricing?
It's worth a shot - and with what you may save, you can put in the bank for a new MBP.
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I have a late 2008 Macbook Pro last updated to the Mavericks OS. The screen died and I took it into an Apple store and was told replacing the screen and the hardware to repair everything would cost almost as much as buying a new laptop or a cheaper model. I was told that I can use a drive sled to access data I need on my hard drive. How do I remove my hard drive and use a drive sled to get to the information I need? What makes matters more complicated is I need to update my iPhone and my iTunes/App store purchases. How can I accomplish this?
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The drive will mount as an "extra" drive on your wife's Macbook, and you can drag and drop whatever you wish. You could create a separate Account for yourself on her computer, and use Migration Assistant or just copy your stuff over to the new account. Then it would not interfere with her files.

Data Recovery from Late 2008 Macbook Hard drive?

I have a late 2008 Macbook. It was recently dropped by a child, resulting in it no longer turning on. (It worked one time when tried within about 12 hours after the fact and then wouldn't get past the Apple logo and spinning wheel on startup). I brought it to the Apple store and was told they were 99% sure it was just a failure in the hard drive cable. Unfortunately, I received a call sometime later saying it was not the cable, but the hard drive itself.
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I may have missed it ... late 2008 there were still the plastic-bodied macbooks and the aluminum-bodied macbook. I'm told the plastic macbooks have a max disk drive capacity of 500GB, and the aluminum-bodied macbooks are good upwards of 1TB. An important point to check is the drive height. Normal is 9.5mm (I believe all WD Scorpio Black drives are 9.5mm). Some are 12.5MM and some are less than 9.5mm. See what you have today, and likely it's 9.5mm, so replace with same. If you're in the US, you might confirm max capacity with OWC who also sell hard drives.
One other option .... a little more expensive, however, you could install a solid-state drive in your macbook. If you're able to use a smaller size, a 240GB drive is around $240 at OWC. Significant speed pickup for disk operations. If you consider this, remember for capacity you need to allow 10% or more for systems usage.
Going from Leopard to Mountain Lion, you may want to upgrade to current iLife programs. The only one no longer offered is iDVD, however. If you want a Snow Leopard level of iLife, Amazon or hardcoremac.com should still have the iLife package available.

Late 2008 MacBook 13": Could old, swollen, battery affect my touchpad?

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