Unresponsive Keyboard and Trackpad problem FIXED/RESOLVED

Same problem here. It's a design issue. My keyboard and trackpad also stopped responding, couldn't get past login ... The problem is that Apple ran the trackpad cable over the top of the battery. And as Macbooks get thinner and thinner, component are snugger and snugger. So, when the battery heats up, and it will when watching YouTube videos or running video editing programs as many of us do, the trackpad cable gets unseated from the connected to the trackpad board. I have an Early 2015 Macbook Pro, and this problem surfaced just after the 1-year warranty period expired. If I turn my Macbook Pro over and firmly press in an up and down motion over the bottom case (under where the trackpad, trackpad cable and battery are all 3 aligned, then turn on my laptop, I once again have a working keyboard and trackpad and can login as normal. This is not what one would expect from such an expensive laptop. As these things get thinner and thinner ... problems will crop up more and more.

Apple Support will tell you to reset your NVRAM and SMC ... but that is the canned reply. Resetting those do fix other problems: keyboard backlights and other wonky issues ... but it will not reconnect an unseated trackpad ribbon. And if you are out of warranty ... just purchase a replacement ribbon on ebay and install it yourself. Taking it to an authorized Apple Repair Center will cost you an arm and a leg, especially outside of the USA where there's no price regulation.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/821-00184-A-Touchpad-Trackpad-Cable-for-Apple-MacBook-Pr o-Retina-13-A1502-2015-/111975916834?hash=item1a1248e522

The link above is only for the Early 2015 (March) MacBook Pro ... you will need to research your models ribbon for replacement.

With some soldering skills the broken conductor path in the ribbon cable can be bypassed. In my case, the third contact from the left of the plug on the touchpad board did not work. So I soldered one end of a cable to the corresponding copper pad next to the plug. Near the mainboard plug end of the ribbon cable, I carefully scratched off the insulation coating of the affected conductor path and soldered the other end to it. After that I fixed/protected the tiny cable with some kapton tape strips. Works!

Some pictures (click to enlarge):

slexus,

Sorry - I've just had a look at the cable that I pulled out of my machine and in order to see the numbers, you have to be looking at the underside of the cable and yes, they're TINY...assuming it's the same for your a1229 then have a look at the image and you should know where to look.

Cheers!

The trackpad on my MacBook Air stopped recognizing clicks. The curser position could be changed but nothing I was trying was working to get the clicker to work... SMC Reset, Zap PRAM, Disk Utility, Permissions... etc.

Turns out that the wireless mouse I had paired to the MBA and tossed into my brief case was being pressed by other items in the briefcase! Turned it off. Problem solved.

The Accularian

My issue was also with the trackpad cable. It is too long and has to be bent as seen in picture, which I think as the battery and the mac body heats up, it kinks the cable and renders it non-functional. My issue was intermittent at first. In my last attempt to fix it, I kinked the cable completely and the keyboard and trackpad stopped working altogether. I ordered a new cable from Amazon, plugged it in and everything went back to normal. Will see how long this cable will last.

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so what do i do if my MacBookPro3,1 has a different ribbon cable layout? pressing on them doesn't do a thing. only a cold reboot restores functionality for an undetermined amount of time. only at one point in time have i managed to cause several reconnect-disconnects to happen when picking up the machine at a certain angle or whatnot. i have not been able to reproduce that no matter how much i've tried. it seemed to have happened from changing pressure to the top side of keyboard rather than the lower side where the ribbons are connected to.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3054842 is my debug log of this (yet another) heinous issue with this machine.

what's different now in 10.6.8 compared to 10.6.7 is that these USB disconnection messages don't appear in system.log anymore. nice job again apple! i need to find out if dmesg has them right after it happens, but i doubt it, afaik dmesg is put into system.log. if i didnt have hardwaregrowler running i wouldnt even know when it happens.

Hello guys,

Im late to the party, so excuse me if some of this has been covered previously and i missed it.

My brother recently gave me his old Macbook, pretty sure its a late 2008 early 09 model, with the larger battery compartment, like so:

[img]http://km.support.apple.com/library/APPLE/APPLECARE_ALLGEOS/HT1366/HT1366_1.jpg[/img]

MB403xx/A 13.3"/D2.4G/2x1GB/160/SD-DL (pretty sure thats the model, i dont have it with me atm so i cant check numbers to confirm)

It was working fine, my brother used it heavily for the last 4 years, (graphic designer) until recently upgrading and never had an issue.

He gave it to me and is was working perfectly, until it just randomly stopped about 2 hrs after using it (note: it was just sitting in his cupboard for a few months prior to me recieving it)

it still functions normally with an aux keyboard/mouse attached.

What i want to know is how do i get to the "Ribbon" to see if it is kinked and or broken as my battery compartment is alot different to the one pictured in the original post. Im abit of a Mac noob so please not too technical, im good with electrics but dont know my way around a mac too well.

Any help would be great guys.

I expreiced similar problem. Unresponsive external keyboard. Keys being repeated. Macbook pro keyboard works just fine.

Did a NVRAM/PRAM reset (see here http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379) and that solved the problem. Everythink seems to work fine again now.

It seems generally known that the cause of this problem is heating and swelling of the battery that is affecting the orange ribbon cable, or the connection betweeen the orange ribbon cable and its connector underneath the trackpad. Here are some things people have done to solve the problem (either permanently or temporarily):

• Depressing and flattening the bulge (if present)
• Putting in a piece of paper/tape between the battery and ribbon
• Replacing the battery
• Replacing the ribbon cable
• Putting tape underneath the ribbon cable (to prevent shorts) solves
• Replacing the entire top case assembly

I think in many cases the ribbon cable has not gone bad, but that it loses proper connection. The presence of a bulge in the cable, for example, might indicate that the ribbon has partially pulled out of the connector thus losing contacts (or has shifted within the connector.) Or perhaps the swelling of the battery has put stress on the connector, so that over time the ribbon contacts can lose connection with the contacts in the connector. Or quite possibly a combination of both.

If this is the case, even replacing the ribbon may only be a temporary solution, as the new ribbon will still be subject to the same stresses as the old one. And if the connector is being stressed as well, then that failure point is still present as well.

One other solution that might work is to add a very small amount of thickness to the ribbon cable connector, to improve the connection within the connector. This might keep the contacts flush against the connector and prevent the sporadic failures. Another idea might be to use a relatively weak adhesive underneath the ribbon cable to prevent it from bulging.

I just started seeing this issue on my 2008 MBP, very rare but it still happens. So for now I have cut a small piece of cellophane tape and stuck it underside at the end of the orange ribbon (obviously on the other side of its metal contacts!) to add a small amount of thickness so it is seated more securly inside the connector. The cable still slid in smoothly into the connector, we'll see if that improves the contact.

If it helps, this solution may only be temporary as well. But it might work longer since it is applied closest to the point of failure (connection of orange cable contacts within the connector.)

Having received a MBP from a friend last friday showing exactly the symptoms discussed in this thread, I have just finished reading it all through. Awesome! And kudos to all contributors!

Nevertheless, I honestly believe I may offer some more detailed information/ conclusions in this case.

I started off with the assumption the intermittent internal USB dropout might indeed be caused by a faulty printed film cable. As corroborated by the overall (be it temporary) succes of the cardboard fix here, as wel as the less temporary succes of replacing the flatcable in question altogether.

On p. 19 of this thread, Computerix posted a neatly presented manual of a more permanent fix by soldering a single strand of copper from the trackpad component board to the main board connector.

Interesting, only one connection out of 4 which make up USB. This made me think, and have a closer look at the hardware on my table.

Whereas it seemed likely to me the brute and fairly unlocalized force applied by the cardboard fix might be able to temporaryly join a broken strand of copper, it seemed highly unlikely those copper strands could at all be severed by battery heat or not too extensive stressing/ bending obvious in the MBPs at hand here.

So my conclusion was this: it is not the copper strands in the ribbon cable that get damaged, rather the copper joining the "rivets" or "islands" on both sides of the ribbon cable close to the trackpad connector. Indeed, 5 of those rivets are in place to allow copper strands to jump to the other side of the ribbon cable, common enough in electronics these days.

Copper joining the rivets on both sides of the cable, will be ultra-thin. And as such easily damaged by the slightest stress ( being flexed all the time between battery and topcase metal framework) or undue heat caused by battery charging and/or adverse thermal conditions prevalent in a laptop.

If you take a close look at Computerix's picture you will see these rivets as small circular islands on the copper-coloured cable ( there are 5 of them, but two of them are a ground bridge):

From left to right, rivet ( not connector) pinout is probably: ground/ data - / data +/ ground / +5V. Note that the data connection rivets are slightly bigger.

What I did as a first test, is pierce the data rivets with a sharp pin and wiggle it around a little bit in order to spread the copper from the upper to the lower layer of the ribbon cable. Then I scratched the two connections with a fingernail. Et voilà, keyboard and trackpad are up and running again, QED.

Next step would be to pierce the holes with a strand of copper wire, and gently solder them in place. All you really need to do is reconnect the upper and lower parts of the ribbon cable near the trackpad connector, i.e. the most stressed point in it. Mind you, I will be using old fashioned resin core solder for this, not ROHs compliant!

I wouldn't be surprised this fix would be more lasting than putting in a new ribbon cable every 6 months or so.

Data connections seem to be less rugged than power connections, and probably for a reason: their frequency being much more vulnerable than a simple DC power line. The latter you can easily check with a multimeter, and, if need be, you can hardwire ground and +5V connections from anywhere else if you know what you're doing: http://attemptedmaker.blogspot.be/2012/10/converting-macbook-keyboardtouch-pad.h tml

And an afterthought: the MacBook Pros in this thread pose an especially difficult challenge: not less than 3 major family issues are involved here:

- the Nvidia 8600 M GT disaster.

- the issue of batteries swelling and/ overheating; not reporting charge conditions properly/ dying before their time.

- the internal USB device issue at hand in this thread.

Enough to create a lot of interference and confusion.

Good luck to you all!

@ Computerix: thanks for your photo and inspiration!