PowerBook G4 Titanium touchpad not working

[Mormislaw]

Hello,
I've just got a Titanium PowerBook G4 DVI (emc 1913), but the touchpad doesn't seem to work at all, not even the button.
Keyboard works fine, the buttons feels ok, and the touchpad is connected well to the logic board. I've reset the PRAM (the PRAM battery is dead btw) and SMC.
What could be the issue?
Is there any chance I could repair it without buying a replacement, which isn't available at all in my country?

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: The touchpad is not detected by the system at all

 

[1042686]

Hmm if the system isn’t seeing the trackpad, maybe the ribbon/trackpad is damaged or the ribbon is not seated properly in the ziff connector.

Ive read on here (not personal experience) that these connectors overtime get loose. Folks “Fixed” itby using a little wedge of business card to push the ribbon up into the ziff socket tightening the connection.

anyhow, just a thought. I’m sure someone who owns a titanium powerbook will speak up. Best of luck

 

[Hrududu]

Have you booted it from any other startup disk? First thing I would do is eliminate a software issue by booting it from another OS/disk to see if that brings it back. Could be as simple as a corrupted driver. When you say the system doesn't detect it, are you missing the control panel/system preference pane for Trackpad? Are you looking at System Profiler? It won't show up there because its on an ADB bus.

 

[Mormislaw]

Have you booted it from any other startup disk? First thing I would do is eliminate a software issue by booting it from another OS/disk to see if that brings it back. Could be as simple as a corrupted driver. When you say the system doesn't detect it, are you missing the control panel/system preference pane for Trackpad? Are you looking at System Profiler? It won't show up there because its on an ADB bus.

I've booted it froma hard drive with OS X Tiger and USB with OS 9.2.2, the touchpad does not work in both of them.
On OS X i tried to install iScroll, to see if it would work with its modified drivers, but it gave me an error and told me that a compatible touchpad couldn't be found. The touchpad also doesn't work in the boot menu, an external mouse works fine

 

[Hrududu]

Yikes. Well that sounds like you’ve probably got a bad ribbon cable/connection.

 

[DeltaMac]

The trackpad for the Titanium G4 is part of the upper case, and (as far as I can find out) not ever available as a separate replaceable part. You could try to search for Apple's part number for that upper case, which is 922-5203. Those appear to often be quite pricey, compared to the value of a complete Titanium G4.