As you may know, I found this MacBook Pro (early 2011, 13inch, CoreI7, 8G RAM, 750G HDD) in the trash with the battery poking out of the trackpad hole and the trackpad being severelely bent.
Today the touchpad stopped working, so I got fed up with its current state and took the damn thing apart.
But before I continue the story, let me interject the story for a moment: if you ever decide to take the trackpad out and power your MacBook Pro on, make sure to leave the *ribbon* itself plugged in, otherwise all OSes (except Linux) will refuse to boot completely. Linux works, but two cores are constantly ran at 100% core usage, and the built-in keyboard is so laggy that it technically doesn't even work anymore. So yeah, keep the ribbon cable (which contains some chips on it) plugged into the motherboard.
Anyways, I had to somehow take the metal piece off of the trackpad itself (because the metal was severely bent), but there was this stupid adhesive holding it in place.
I originally wanted to put the touchpad into the oven, but decided against it because I was afraid of damaging the sensing lines or the surface or the connector just via pure heat.
I don't have a heatgun, so I decided to use my ancient heating device to project the heat on the trackad itself. I know that most (if not all) metals are good heat conductors, so I (ab)used this fact and heated up the metal part as much as possible, then I took a big SIM card piece (expired credit cards also work) and started working my way through the trackpad. After I worked my way thru' mostly, I took a thick flat head screwdriver, positioned it between the biggest opening hole (opposite side of the clicky button part), held that open with my fingernails, and just put the screwdriver in the hole.
Important note: don't push the screwdriver in! Just let it fall in the hole, and hold it firmly in place! Don't let it move, otherwise it will scratch the surface of the trackpad and damage the lines, resulting in a malfunctioning trackpad! Only let the gravity push the screwdriver in the hole, don't use external force! The only way you could allow the screwdriver to push in more is if you use your fingers to make the hole bigger, and gravity makes the screwdriver go deeper.
While the screwdriver was pulling the hole apart, I used the SIM card piece to work my way thru' the other sticky adhesive which is still sticky. After a while you'll need to reheat the damn thing, pull the hole, let the screwdriver fall a bit deeper, and work your way thru' the damn thing again. And repeat.
Once you fucked around with the damn adhesive long enough, you should hear a ripping sound. That's the sound of holy glory, and that means that this is the critical moment where you can waste all this time even more that you have just wasted. If you pull the hole too strong, you'll crack and/or break the board in half. If you accidently push the touch pad and the metal together, it'll stick again. If the screwdriver falls out, you'll have to start from step one. You should have extreme patience at this point, just sloooooooooooooooooowly pull the holes on all sides to dampen the force you're putting on the trackpad to prevent the board cracking/breaking in half, and slowly pull while you're hearing the adhesive tearing from the metal. If the tearing stops, just heat up the thing again, use the SIM card or whatever to break the adhesive, and try again. If you're lucky then it will come apart very rapidly, so watch out, don't let the screwdriver damage the connection port or yourself when the two pieces come apart!
At this point you're free to reconnect the trackpad to the ribbon cable, and test it out if you have damaged it or not. Luckily I was extremely patient and calm, and it took me exactly one hour and four minutes to take the thing apart successfully. I have damaged the sticker on the clicky button a bit, but not enough to make the button not stay and fall off.
But yeah, all of this made the touchpad work even better than it was before! This action has fixed the "blind spots" the trackpad had, and has even made it more sensitive! If you're not mashing that trackpad like an idiot (you won't press on it so hard that it will snap in half) then you can leave the metal off, it's afaik only for shielding and structural stability (so pressing hard on the center will not break the board in half after a short time of use).
Now if you excuse me, I'll wash my hands for 20minutes utnder very hot water, because I can feel the adhesive having eaten itself into my skin >o<
Also, I'll have to find something to fix my broken fingernail for prying the damn thing for one hour.
Edit: I forgot to show how I managed to make the touchpad stay in place... is there something duct tape can't fix?
Today the touchpad stopped working, so I got fed up with its current state and took the damn thing apart.
But before I continue the story, let me interject the story for a moment: if you ever decide to take the trackpad out and power your MacBook Pro on, make sure to leave the *ribbon* itself plugged in, otherwise all OSes (except Linux) will refuse to boot completely. Linux works, but two cores are constantly ran at 100% core usage, and the built-in keyboard is so laggy that it technically doesn't even work anymore. So yeah, keep the ribbon cable (which contains some chips on it) plugged into the motherboard.
Anyways, I had to somehow take the metal piece off of the trackpad itself (because the metal was severely bent), but there was this stupid adhesive holding it in place.
I originally wanted to put the touchpad into the oven, but decided against it because I was afraid of damaging the sensing lines or the surface or the connector just via pure heat.
I don't have a heatgun, so I decided to use my ancient heating device to project the heat on the trackad itself. I know that most (if not all) metals are good heat conductors, so I (ab)used this fact and heated up the metal part as much as possible, then I took a big SIM card piece (expired credit cards also work) and started working my way through the trackpad. After I worked my way thru' mostly, I took a thick flat head screwdriver, positioned it between the biggest opening hole (opposite side of the clicky button part), held that open with my fingernails, and just put the screwdriver in the hole.
Important note: don't push the screwdriver in! Just let it fall in the hole, and hold it firmly in place! Don't let it move, otherwise it will scratch the surface of the trackpad and damage the lines, resulting in a malfunctioning trackpad! Only let the gravity push the screwdriver in the hole, don't use external force! The only way you could allow the screwdriver to push in more is if you use your fingers to make the hole bigger, and gravity makes the screwdriver go deeper.
While the screwdriver was pulling the hole apart, I used the SIM card piece to work my way thru' the other sticky adhesive which is still sticky. After a while you'll need to reheat the damn thing, pull the hole, let the screwdriver fall a bit deeper, and work your way thru' the damn thing again. And repeat.
Once you fucked around with the damn adhesive long enough, you should hear a ripping sound. That's the sound of holy glory, and that means that this is the critical moment where you can waste all this time even more that you have just wasted. If you pull the hole too strong, you'll crack and/or break the board in half. If you accidently push the touch pad and the metal together, it'll stick again. If the screwdriver falls out, you'll have to start from step one. You should have extreme patience at this point, just sloooooooooooooooooowly pull the holes on all sides to dampen the force you're putting on the trackpad to prevent the board cracking/breaking in half, and slowly pull while you're hearing the adhesive tearing from the metal. If the tearing stops, just heat up the thing again, use the SIM card or whatever to break the adhesive, and try again. If you're lucky then it will come apart very rapidly, so watch out, don't let the screwdriver damage the connection port or yourself when the two pieces come apart!
At this point you're free to reconnect the trackpad to the ribbon cable, and test it out if you have damaged it or not. Luckily I was extremely patient and calm, and it took me exactly one hour and four minutes to take the thing apart successfully. I have damaged the sticker on the clicky button a bit, but not enough to make the button not stay and fall off.
But yeah, all of this made the touchpad work even better than it was before! This action has fixed the "blind spots" the trackpad had, and has even made it more sensitive! If you're not mashing that trackpad like an idiot (you won't press on it so hard that it will snap in half) then you can leave the metal off, it's afaik only for shielding and structural stability (so pressing hard on the center will not break the board in half after a short time of use).
Now if you excuse me, I'll wash my hands for 20minutes utnder very hot water, because I can feel the adhesive having eaten itself into my skin >o<
Also, I'll have to find something to fix my broken fingernail for prying the damn thing for one hour.
Edit: I forgot to show how I managed to make the touchpad stay in place... is there something duct tape can't fix?
