M2 MBA touchpad problems

[raylo32]

So, I managed to spill a little coffee... black, no sugar... on my touchpad and now it is sticky. Honestly, I have never liked this touchpad, it has so little travel and very little tactile feedback for the clicks. Now it is worse. I cleaned it with 91% alcohol and that improved it but I may try to replace it. That repair should be within my abilities as I have worked on many laptops over the years, and I have watched the disassembly on youtube which looks pretty straightforward.

Has anyone here taken this job on? Any tips? What about recommendations for a quality tool set with those special Apple pentalobe tips?

 

[diego.caraballo]

So, I managed to spill a little coffee... black, no sugar... on my touchpad and now it is sticky. Honestly, I have never liked this touchpad, it has so little travel and very little tactile feedback for the clicks. Now it is worse. I cleaned it with 91% alcohol and that improved it but I may try to replace it. That repair should be within my abilities as I have worked on many laptops over the years, and I have watched the disassembly on youtube which looks pretty straightforward.

Has anyone here taken this job on? Any tips? What about recommendations for a quality tool set with those special Apple pentalobe tips?

Hi.
Read the online guide by Apple:

MacBook Air (M2, 2022) Repair Manual - Apple Support

Technical instructions for replacing parts in an Apple device

support.apple.com

Buy the trackpad:

https://selfservicerepair.com/en-US/order

Tools:
Pentalobe: https://www.kctool.com/wera-030331-kraftform-micro-esd-pentalobe-precision-screwdriver-ts5-1-4mm/
T3: https://www.kctool.com/wera-118037-t3-x-40mm-kraftform-micro-torx-precision-screwdriver/
T5: https://www.kctool.com/wera-118040-t5-x-40mm-kraftform-micro-torx-precision-screwdriver/

 

[raylo32]

So, I sprayed a tiny bit of this stuff into the edges of the trackpad and damn, if it isn't working great again, for an hour so far. We'll see how it does tomorrow after it is totally dry although this stuff is so volatile is really should be gone already. I won't call this solved until tomorrow... and I guess I'll have a spare trackpad when the one I ordered comes next week.

 

[raylo32]

Well, the CRC spray turned out to be a fail. The trackpad worked great for awhile but now I have just the opposite problem. Instead of being sticky and not clicking the taps register and the haptics fire off far too easily even when set to "firm", making the trackpad almost unusable. Maybe the thing had some dielectric grease in there that got dissolved? IDK. So, back to waiting for the new part. LOL.

Edit: so, I gave it a tiny bit of silicone spray into the edges of the trackpad and that has helped tamp down the sensitivity. Not sure if that will persist, or maybe even get sticky again, or what. I am still expecting to have to replace the thing, but you never know. Maybe I'll get lucky.

 

[raylo32]

So, my tool kit came today and I R&R'ed the old trackpad. Easy peasy. I inspected and cleaned it. It looked OK, nothing really in there. Then I put it back together and it still doesn't work well. Some of that may be that I didn't have the corner spacers to get the thing lined up properly. I also don't have one of those adjustable torque drivers to tighten the bolts to 17.5 n-cm as specified. I am not sure how important that is to the function?

I just adjusted it again using corner spacers I made out of 0.2mm thick paper and that seemed to get the gaps about right. But the trackpad works just like it did before I took it out, so I guess it is just done. New one coming next week. In any case this is almost a trivial job except for the shimming and adjusting the gap. That is awfully fiddly.

 

[hobowankenobi]

ifixit is super helpful with good guides, info and some parts. Like this.

 

[raylo32]

LOL... I didn't have that big a spill and I am not disassembling the entire MBA to check each and every connection. If it comes to that I'd just get a new MBA. Life is too short.

I did get the Ifixit basic toolkit and it is decent, but a little $$ for what you get. Alls I really needed was a P5, T4, suction cup, tweezers and plastic pry tool. The kit has all that so it worked. But the suction cup is really too small and was just barely able to get it done. On the other hand, the magnetic driver works great and is essential when working with these microscopic screws.

ifixit is super helpful with good guides, info and some parts. Like this.

 

[raylo32]

The new trackpad that I ordered from Apple self-repair (thanks for the link, Diego!) came last evening and I installed it this morning. It works perfectly. The repair was pretty easy overall and the only part I had a little trouble with was aligning the trackpad in the chassis. They give you 4 plastic spacers for the corners that you place to establish the gaps then tighten down the screws. Only problem was that the spacers were simply too thick and with one emplaced there was not enough space to install the one on the opposite side. So, I did a workaround for that, hanging the chassis over the table so I could visualize the trackpad alignment from above and get underneath to gradually snug the screws up. That did the trick.

The other interesting thing is that I found my original trackpad cable was not fastened down with those little strips of adhesive. This keyboard had been replaced by Apple service under warranty and they apparently took some shortcuts when reassembling. LOL. The new trackpad kit came with a cable and new shield that had the adhesive so now that is all up to spec.

Back in business, baby!

 

[hobowankenobi]

Thanks for reporting back! Great to hear.

 

[raylo32]

The other cool thing is that they give you a credit for the returned broken parts, in this case $17. It also includes a free UPS return shipping label. Very positive experience overall.