laptop touchpad worn out

  • Thread starter Thread starter 123Jim
  • Start date Start date
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123Jim

Hi all,
HP pavilion ze2000 laptop's touchpad has a worn shiny section which is
giving me the problem of accidental click or missed click depending how I
try to adjust the Synaptics sensitivity settings.

To replace it appears to require a whole replacement 'top cover' with
integrated touchpad. Well that's an expensive part for an old laptop.

Would a very thin adhesive tape covering the touchpad improve the situation
and do you have suggestions for such a tape?
 
Grinder said:
If the wearing away of that coating as change the electrical properties of
the touchpad to the point where its freaking out the tracking, slapping
some tape on there won't help.

My guess is that there might actually be something wrong with the touchpad
circuitry, or you have a power supply problem as suggested in this clip
from Wikipedia:

| If the computer is powered by an external power supply (PSU),
| the detailed construction of the PSU will influence the
| virtual ground effect; a touchpad may work properly with one
| PSU but be jerky or malfunction with another (this does not
| imply any electrical risk whatsoever, a delicate capacitative
| ground, not a contact ground, is at issue). This has been
| known to cause touchpad problems when a manufacturer's PSU,
| which will have been designed to work with the touchpad, is
| replaced by a different type. This effect can be checked by
| touching a metallic part of the computer with the other hand
| and seeing if operation is restored. In some cases touching
| the (insulated) power supply with some part of the body, or
| using the computer on the lap instead of on a desk, while
| working can restore correct operation.
Click to expand...

Aha .. very interesting! .. Unless it is my imagination the touchpad is
working normally since I touched the metal expansion port on the side of the
laptop .. .. and I am using a newly acquired power adapter which is not an
HP power adapter.

Next time I accidentally click something I will hopefully again fix my
electrical capacitance problem by touching the port or the cable.

Thanks for the help I'll report back after more testing.
 
Cursor control is definitely manageable now .. When it starts to behave
incorrectly I just touch the Expansion port and it's good again.

I replaced the power cord recently due to intermittent power failure
problems .. Well, it turns out I still have those problems with the new
power cord, just not so frequently. The intermittent connection failures
must be due to the jack rather than the power cable/adapter. It occurs to me
that this might also be impacting on the touchpad control. I will
undoubtedly need to replace the power jack at some point, when the power
failures becomes more frequent and less easily fixed. I just reinsert the
power cable or pull on it very gently.

cheers!
 
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