Yep. Only thing that worked for me. I can actually live with that.

The battery was swollen and dirty. I’m now recharging with an old battery to see if that will work for a while — but will go and buy a new battery asap.

The whole exercise took 15 minutes — thank you!!

Instead of using only the corner of a piece of paper, I used strips. ALSO, I love those lint rolls to remove hair from your clothing, and thought that would have been perfect here too. So I used strips of POST-IT notes. On my trackpad, I could fit two sheets of Post-it on top of each other (a bit stiffer and more effective than only one). I cut approx 3/8″ strips of it and used that, and as I moved it back and forth, the gunk stuck to it. As it got worn, I just cut a bit off, until the strip of glue was used up, then moved on to a new strip. It really works GREAT!!! My trackpad hasn’t made clicking noises for months, and now it was STUCK and kept selecting everything on my screen, drove me crazy. Had to do something, so while searching, I found this post of yours!

I’m so happy, now the problem is solved forever! This has been a problem for me in the past also, as I have psoriasis, and my skin just keeps flaking. All those small flakes find their way into the keyboard and pointing devices. But nothing as bad as this trackpad now (and nothing as difficult to solve)! For the keyboard, I use this little kit that connects to my ordinary house vacuum cleaner which is of the canister type, not the upright type that is so common in the US (the kit that connects to the vacuum’s hose has different tips, brushes etc., I found mine on eBay, but you can find them in electronics stores etc. too). Such a kit would work great with the central vacuums which have outlets along the walls of the house too, as those have the same type of hose, I guess. I use the kit also to clean my sewing machine and overlocker – it really is a great little kit (could also be used in the car, for the fan outlets and such tight spaces) and only cost a few dollars. Think mine was around $10-15 on eBay. Nice not having to depend on having cans of air to blow such stuff with. Besides, I once experienced at work how flammable the stuff is, I was helping a coworker clean her keyboard, but did not notice that she had a little candle burning at the side of her computer (who burns candles at the office?). Well, we had a BIG KA-BOOM, with flames going almost to the ceiling and her cute table cloth which she also had on her desk caught fire! Amazingly the keyboard was fine (and very clean, I might add, LOL, burnt clean, I guess). People came running because of the loud BANG… You can be sure I made sure no burning candles were anywhere before using the stuff again after that experience! Sure, in retrospect it was kind of funny, but then and there it sure wasn’t funny, it was real scary!!! So kids, don’t try it at home!!! We were very lucky that nobody got hurt. I mean, the flames were so close to my face… Oxygen and flames do not mix!!!

And I was just about to pull the trigger on a new MacBook Air!

Now to contact my Apple Store to see if I can get lucky on a replacement battery..

You saved me a bunch of money and time!

Thank you….

I don’t have enough fingers to count the many flaws my macbook has.

Thank you so much you are a life saver. My wife’s mac book pro had the same problem as you. I had no idea it was a swollen battery. She had told me her battery was not lasting as long as it had been. When I read your post, I flipped it over an sure enough. Took the battery out and the track pad worked like a Champ.

The battery was swollen. I have to get a new battery, but we knew she needed one anyway.

Avery,

Thanks!

Thanks

We fixed in kind of a backwards way, here’s how.

We installed a free program called sidetrack which unnstalls the trackpad driver and installs its own, enhanced driver. That was okay, but took away some functionality. So we uninstalled sidetrack which automatically reinstalled the trackpad driver.

And VOILA! It’s working beautifully now.

Please let me know if this works for you.

I took my swollen, out of warranty, MacBook Pro battery to the Genius Bar and they replaced it immediately no questions asked.

The batterypack on my Dell laptop at work died in half the time though.

I had a sticky key problem – and here is what I discovered.

The problem was driving me crazy and Apple support had guessed the entire trackpad should be replaced. This involves replacing the entire upper part of the case.

Before I could get it in – the real problem surfaced. My battery exploded.

See
http://hugh-chatfield.com/Blog.....blems.html

The new batteries have what looks like a black bag inside them – which if the battery fails – will expand (not burst into flames like earlier version of the battery could do). As it expands, the trackpad is immediately above that battery, and pressure will be exerted on the trackpad button making it feel very stiff.

So if your trackpad button feels very stiff – take your battery out an examine it for bulges. If it is bulging, that is an indicator your battery is failing. If you had a 3 year extended warranty like me – it is replaced free of charge.

Cheers…Hugh
CyberSpace Industries 2000 Inc.