I'm asking because mine is showing some strange behavior. It still tracks, but the center area of the trackpad tracks more slowly than the edges. If my finger is in the center of the pad, the mouse moves very slowly across the screen, and if I put my finger on the edges, the mouse moves normally across the screen. I've tried adjusting the trackpad settings in system prefs, restarting and resetting pram to no effect.
Any info would be appreciable. Thanks!
1.5 gHz PowerBook G4,
Mac OS X (10.4.8),
1.25 gig RAM
The might, if you happen to not keep clean hands and food gets on the trackpad. They work on the principle of testing capacitance and heat. If they can't sense the heat from your hand, that's a problem.
I don't think that just cleaning helps (the trackpad would need to be quite dirty...).
Since you state that it refuses to work correctly in the middle of the pad, I guess that you used too much pressure and over time the sensors became damaged at this area (used more frequently than the corners).
If cleaning brings not the desired result 😉 I would look either for a wireless mouse or trackpad as an alternative. Repairing (also DIY) is possible, too.
Thanks for the input folks. I repaired disk permissions and restarted and that helped, and I do have a wireless mouse. The battery just ran out so was using the trackpad exclusively for the first time in about 6 months, so it might also be that I've gotten used to my mighty mouse.