What would cause my Mac's trackpad to go absolutely haywire?
Asked by
DominicX (
28813
)
February 5th, 2012
Obviously I will be taking it to the Apple store to have it looked at, it’s just that isn’t really convenient right now and I’m curious as to what’s going on in case anyone else has experienced this.
Essentially, the trackpad has become useless on my Mac as of a couple hours ago. Moving around the cursor causes it to randomly click and select things, scrolling is completely defunct. Restarting the computer hasn’t helped. Is there any way to disable the trackpad so I can use a Bluetooth mouse instead? Because even that isn’t working as long as the trackpad’s madness continues to prevent the mouse from taking over.
Ugh…
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8 Answers
1–800-MY APPLE. Do you have a tech support contract?
Just go into settings and disable it for now.
@gailcalled I believe so, though I’m not exactly sure. I’ll find out eventually.
@XOIIO And how do you do that, exactly? Not to sound stupid, but under System Preferences—> Trackpad, there doesn’t seem to be any option to disable it.
@DominicX Well there should be, I don’t use macs but I don’t get why there wouldn’t be that option. Maybe a small button above or beside the trackpad, or an indentation you tap twice on it to disable it.
Actually, based on Googling, it looks like in previous versions of Mac OS there used to be an option to disable it. Not anymore it seems. :(
Or maybe it’s just under a different category? I’ll keep trying…
Did your Mac power-off after you requested the restart and before the restart?
I’m not that familiar with Macs, but with Windows I can either Turn Off my PC, where the process turns off the power after my applications are stopped, or I can Restart in which case the power stays on.
If you did a continuously-powered restart, then perhaps doing a procedure that turns off the power will help.
Right click on the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar.
Select your trackpad.
Click “disconnect.”
Easier: press the power button on the right side of the trackpad to turn it off.
So…I was reading about this problem online and apparently it’s decently common for MacBook Airs, though most people with the problem complained that it only occurred when the computer got hot.
The only solution is to have the trackpad or the entire computer replaced. It is a hardware based issue and there’s no solution other than to change it out for a new one.
I’m pretty disappointed in Apple, to say the least. But then again I’ve had bad luck with Macs. Still, the first problem was a Hitachi-made hard drive that crashed. This problem is entirely Apple’s fault.
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