serp4 Trackpad going nuts

[eric_budd]

Overall I've been extremely pleased with my serval, but lately I've been having a problem with the trackpad.

It started acting up few months ago-- while moving the pointer, it would randomly click-and-drag, or just start firing a flurry of clicks for a few seconds.

Initially I wrote it off, assuming I was brushing the trackpad while typing or similar. Unfortunately, this problem has gotten steadily worse, to the point where the laptop is almost unusable.

The behavior is very erratic-- sometimes, with a mouse plugged in, it will act as though the mouse button is being held down, or it will start clicking repeatedly. I have tried this with several different mice-- some seem to be less problematic than others, but they all exhibit this problem.

When using the trackpad, it is extremely sensitive to clicks. Even when using the lightest pressure, the trackpad will sometimes click-and-drag while moving the pointer. Other times, the mouse buttons will refuse to register legitimate clicks at all. It has become incredibly frustrating to use, especially galling since this is my primary work machine.

Has anybody run into this issue before? I'm worried that this is a hardware problem, since I've not heard of anything similar happening on Ubuntu. It's very intermittent as well-- sometimes everything works fine.

Any advice is appreciated.

[thomasaaron]

I need a little help understanding your set-up. It sounds like you have both the trackpad *and* an external mouse connected simultaneously. Is that right?

If so, with what combinations of hardware do you see the problem?

With no trackpad and no mouse (i.e. just your touchpad)?
With only a USB mouse connected (i.e. no trackpad)?
With only the trackpad connected (i.e. no USB mouse)?
With both USB mouse and trackpad?

[eric_budd]

Hi Thomas,

I use the laptop in a variety of scenarios: at work, I generally have an external mouse plugged in, but once I get home I generally don't.

And my apologies for the confusion, when I said "trackpad" I was referring to the laptop's built-in trackpad (or touchpad-- I can't keep up with all the distinctions) :)

With nothing connected, using just the built-in touchpad, it seems to flip-flop between randomly "holding down" the left mouse button and failing to recognize mouse clicks.

With a mouse plugged in, the behavior is all over the map. Generally, it's the same as with just the trackpad, but I've seen it do all sorts of oddball things-- a frantic series of clicks, or swapping the apparent functions of left and right mouse buttons (although this has not happened in a while). Again, this is with several different mice. Overall the problems seem to be less frequent when I have a mouse plugged in, but they still occur.

Now that I think about it, I've had two USB mice die while plugged into the laptop. One was a cheap-o junk mouse, so I didn't think much of it, but the other was a fairly new (< 1 yr old) Logitech. The Logitech died last week, which is why I've been using the internal touchpad more lately.

I've not ever used an external trackpad, so I'm not sure what the behavior would be there.

Thanks for the quick response, and please let me know if you need any further information.

[thomasaaron]

OK. Thanks for the clarification. Let's find out if it is hardware or configuration-related.

Try booting from a live CD and see if you experience the problem. If you do, it's hardware. If not, it's software.

[eric_budd]

Hi Thomas,

Well, it looks like a hardware issue. :( I've booted into an 8.10 Live CD, and all was well for about 15 minutes or so, but now the same problem is back.

What's my next step?

[thomasaaron]

Could you please fill out this form?
http://system76.com/article_info.php?articles_id=39

It will go to my inbox, and I'll get the ball rolling on a solution.

[eric_budd]

Done. Thanks, and let me know if there's anything else you need.

[thomasaaron]

Thanks, I should have further info/instructions for you on Monday.