Chosen Solution
I help out at the school computer lab and we have about 70 chrome books. I would say at least ten of them are suffering from this problem. To describe the problem in further detail when you click the left or the right button on the track pad the buttons dont pop back up and there is no click it just sags down when you click it and sags back up once you have let go
I put a little rubbing alcohol on the edge of a thin card (CVS Pharmacy Card) and forced it inbetween the bottom of the trackpad. Then just moved it side to side to clean any gunk buildup. That created a gap again at the bottom of the trackpad and I heard “clickity clickity” again. Easy 60 second fix.
a user on the google forum suggested loosening the screws near the touchpad for this…my samsung is getting close to that point
This ifixit article does work. Repairing Samsung Chromebook Series 3 Track Pad Tried taking apart two trackpads by removing bottom bezel then the battery and heating up the trackpad from the bottom. After removing the trackpad completely, fixing the spring, then reassembling; the trackpad still would not click. Then I tried the process in the article, using a heatgun, and it worked like a charm. As soon as you remove the thin piece of plastic that sticks to the trackpad circuit board you will be able to click again. I cleaned the trackpad plastic around the edges and reinstalled so it wasn’t touching the surrounding bezel. Just note, you are only removing the plastic cover from the trackpad circuit board, not the entire trackpad assembly like in the other process that was mentioned here. I was skeptical at first but it did work for me!
I have a very similiar problem with a very easy temporary fix (fix lasts about 1 to 30 minutes) and it is hit the back of the chromebook with a medium ish force (but don’t go overboard for obvious reasons) under the mouse pad on each side once or twice. I find it helps some. One of my friends replaced the miniature leaf spring ish thing under the mouse pad and the issue went away but that was pretty difficult without proper tools and he cracked the mouse pad in 5 places and dented in 3 places, so it is kind of sharp and not very pleasant to use so I don’t recommend that method.
A low-tech solution that doesn’t require the machine to be opened up is to slide the sharp edge of a Stanley knife blade (just the blade without the handle) into the gap between the track-pad and the casing on the edge nearest the user; press down on the blade with your thumb; then role the top of the blade towards yourself. This slides the track-pad towards the back of the machine, after which it starts clicking again. It took a few gentle rolls to get the track-pad to move far enough. You might be able to achieve the same with a pry tool, but the blade has the advantage of being stronger at the tip, and having a broader surface area. I didn’t find that this left any marks, because there is plenty of room to insert the blade without it touching anything along the sharpe edge.
ok so what you do is you push down hard but not to hard and it should fix it if it don’t fix it you pressed down to hard or not enough.
Derek I have around 1700 of these in a 1 on 1 setting in our school district. I have found the mouse pad moves and rubs the side of the opening causing it to not click and feel non responsive. It gets too expensive to replace the keyboard top assembly, so I found if you cover the keyboard to protect it you can heat the mouse pad with a hair dryer insert your pry tool beside the mouse pad you can move it till there is a gap all around the edges let it cool a second and remove the pry tool and the mouse pad will click again. Good luck Jeff
I spoke with Samsung Customer Service support about this same issue. The person who helped me said there is a spring underneath the trackpad that gets dirty and causes it to stick. According to her, you just open the unit, remove the trackpad, and clean that spring with denatured alcohol. I haven’t tried it yet, though. Will be trying that repair shortly.
Eddie Pick’s advice of simply loosening the two screws closest to the trackpad solved this problem for me.
connect external mouse
I am not sure why this happens. I am in the tech department for an entire school district (yes I am a student, so I experience this everyday). I absolutely cannot stand it and I just want to throw them to the next county - also because, well, they´re chromebooks. We have about 5,000ish of these. And I would say atleast 3,000 of them are doing this. We also have ASUS Chromebits, ASUS/HP/Acer/Dell Chromeboxes, and many, many other Chromebooks. Probably around 7,500 ChromeOS devices total. I absolutely hate them, and I believe that the district will end up regreting ¨Going Google.¨ Granted they are cheap, fast, and cloud managed, no current ChromeOS device is anywhere close to being up-to-par with modern standards in technology. And the idea of going all cloud managed is great, because Windows is not as fast as it could be. I just think it would have been better to stick with the 12,500+ Windows 7 computers that we had. Huge headache. BY THE WAY - IF THERE ARE ANY ADMINISTRATORS OR USERS THAT ARE CONSIDERING GOING WITH ChromeOS, DON´T. WHETHER YOU ARE ON Windows, macOS, OS X, Linux, or Unix, JUST STAY WHERE YOU ARE AT! I will say though, that Google is not a bad company. They have great products. In fact, we (as students) have Google Apps Unlimited for Education and the teachers have Google Apps Unlimited for Work. The entirely new revamped G-Suite is great and has a lot of potential. Just don´t buy any ChromeOS devices. If any, just try ChromeOS out in a VM. You´ll find out why this answer couldn´t be any shorter. Hope this helps and leads others.
I too had a “sticky” situation after spilling cola on the closed top of my laptop. None of the keys were sticking but the built in touch pad mouse keys were really bad. There was not enough room between the touch keys for a small plastic card (CVS, Kroger, or any other reward cards) so I took the tab off a paper carton (such as OTC box or any other box that has a small thin carton) and doused it with alcohol. I ran it around the spaces between the buttons of the built in mouse on the touch pad and it solved my problem in about a minute. I followed it up with a blast of canned dust remover and now it’s as good as ever!! Great tip from another user!!
Apply some heat with a heat gun or hair dyer (BE CAREFUL OR YOU’LL WARP THE SPACE BAR!) once the glue is loosened a bit you can apply pressure and slide the trackpad downward away from the keyboard (you’ll notice the gap around the trackpad become more distinct) and you should be able to ‘click’ again.
nothing works!!!!!!1
i used a nail file, the really thin metal ones, and gently slid it under the mouse pad to pop it back up. Worked like a charm.
After looking at the replies, I had an idea. I just moved a post-it around the edge of the mousepad to see if the dust/dirt/etc. would be picked up, and it seemed to work. Very inexpensive and only took like 30 seconds. Not sure if it would work for all computers (i have an Acer Chromebook R11) or all issues, but it resolved mine! Thanks everyone!
