Strange iBook trackpad behavior

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
My iBook (specs in my signature) has been demonstrating some really weird trackpad behavior in the last couple hours. It will alternate between normal movement, super-fast movement, and a complete lack of movement a few times per minute. I have no idea what's causing this... I thought it might be confused because I have "Ignore trackpad while typing" on, so I turned that off and it helped, but it still acts strangely. I also turned off tap-clicking.



Could it be confused by the heat from the computer? I run the command line version of SETI at home 24/7, and right now the fan is on and the CPU is at 100% (it's always at 100% when SETI is on, it only uses unclaimed CPU cycles so it doesn't slow down the computer at all).

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    macsrgood4umacsrgood4u Posts: 3,007member
    Moisture (swetty hands) can also affect the trackpad.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    put it to sleep and then wake it up. see if that fixes it.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Thanks... sleeping it did the trick. It also managed to make the audio cut out, but that was fixed by plugging in my headphones and then unplugging them



    I was confused because the trackpad was totally clean. Apparently it just gets screwed up after a while.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    i've only seen this once before, and it was at an apple store. the GB dude there did this little trick and it seemed fine. i've had this PB for 6 months now and only had it happen once, but the sleep trick fixed it. it's odd though, have no idea what's actually going on to screw it up.
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