Open Heart Surgery
I'm running around the house doing imaginary high fives. I just took the back off one of the ACER laptops we have hanging around the house, and soldered a wire between the back of the touch-pad, and an earth point on the motherboard. Rather stupidly, I did it while it was still switched on (I didn't realise).Fingers crossed, it appears to have worked absolutely perfectly.
You're probably wondering why on earth I did such a thing. I shall endeavor to explain.
Have you ever been using a laptop with a touch-pad, and your finger has ceased to make the mouse pointer move around? You invariably lick your finger, or rub it on your trousers, and curse at the laptop (and at your finger). We have been having this happen with our children's laptopsone of which I inherited from our eldest daughter (she got the old Macbook, which she now won't let out of her sight ever again).
After doing some digging online, I found out what has been going on. It turns out touch-pads measure the resistance change caused when our finger touches them. If you think about it, the touch-pad is surrounded by electrical components within a laptop, so trying measure any kind of imperceptible voltage change is a bit of a nightmare. To solve this, the touchpad is earthedusually with a bit of metalised sticky tapeto make sure than it doesn't hold any charge when nobody is touching it. I found all this out by watching a YouTube video.
The solution therefore, is to get a bit of thin wire, and a soldering iron, and attach the wire between the back of the touchpad, and to an earth on the motherboard (all motherboards usually have earths where the mounting screws are attachedagainI learned this through YouTube).
There was only one problemI have never soldered anything in my life before. I didn't do electronics at school. I don't even think it was a subject you could take (I remember my brother doing something with printed circuit boards, because he spent an entire summer marking out a board and dissolving the copper away).
Anyway.
I bought a soldering iron off the internet a couple of weeks ago. Todaygiven that I have been at homeI decided to either fix, or break the laptop. I've had the back of it off before, but this time was a bit more serioustaking most of it apart to get at the touchpad. With the various bits of it's innards laid out across the desk, I got the soldering iron out of it's packet, plugged it in, and switched it on. A few moments later gentle wisps of smoke started to curl from it's shaftI imagine that was just dust burning off.
It turns out soldering is one of those “knack” skillssomething you can only learn by actually doing. It also turns out you need more than two hands. I ended up with the wire held against the motherboard by balancing household items on it, and then attempted to drip a single blob of solder onto the bare end. Miraculously it worked. It took two goes to get absolutely right, and I even managed not to melt a hole in the computer touchpad.
Two minutes laterafter snapping the back onto the laptop, and putting all the screws back inI hit the power button, and realised the computer had been on throughout. Oops. It woke instantly, and almost miraculously (in my mind) the touchpad worked perfectly.
For my next trick I will try to perform the same operation on the other two laptops. I might get some sort of gadget to hold wires in place first though.