Chromebook Cursor disappears/touchpad not working

[jbizzy]

Hi all,

I work for a small school district in Massachusetts and one of my (many) roles is BYOD support. A student brought me this device and was complaining that his trackpad just randomly stopped working. I pulled it apart (kind of annoying in and of itself, watch out for the bolts behind the stopper and checked the connection). The connection looked like it was in, but it was just sitting inside of the housing not making an actual connection. Plugged that back in (guessing the problem occurs because there is not enough slack) and gave it a hard restart and woo, the problem was solved! I attached a picture of the internals, the two blue plastic tabs are the ones you're going to want to investigate... Good luck! 

[Tankpo]

This was exactly what I needed!  It appears that because the flat wire is able to wiggle out just a little bit, you need to lift tiny white plastic part that 'locks' it down, set the wire in, and push the white clip back into place.

Thank you jbizzy!  

Hopefully others can use this to solve their problem.  

Good luck all!

[writerdianalee]

Hi: For a quick simple solution, I power down, get an alcohol **bleep** hazel or rubbing alcohol, put a small amount on a paper towel, and clean the touchpad and the surrounding area. I also unplug any other electrical things right near me; electric heaters seem to set it off (static electricity). When I power back up after that kind of cleaning, it works - however, this taking apart of the chromebook and fixing the blue tabs/white wires issue would be a nice resolution if it were that and I may ask the IT technician at my office to look into that.

[Hutch58]

Nicely done!  Thanks

[tonyflores]

I had this same issue on two of my Chromebooks.  On one I have started using a USB mouse and the other one the problem is not too bad.  I will open it tonight and re-adjust the plug.  Thank you for posting a solution.

[healn1]

I have the same problem. Unable to use phonebook without cursor

[jonezo]

It's generally a very bad idea for amateurs like me to crack open a laptop case, but this solution did work for me, and it was not terribly scary (but slightly)

[becky63]

I let the battery run down on the Chromebook. Then i took the screws out and carefully opened up the case enough so that could get to theinside of the track pad. Using a q tip and alcohol, I cleaned all around the track pad - where the wire goes in and the little squares. Closed it back up and did a hard reset (Power button and refresh button). It has been working fine for two days.

[mnchromeusr]

I had the same problem.  I opened up the laptop. The mouse pad flex circuit had come loose from the accepting socket which s near below the middle of the keyboard.   The white tab can be lifted to reinsert the flex circuit.  the press the white tab back into place to re fasten the circuit.

To open the laptop, you have to remove the little white rubber stops to access four of the screws.  

[Kingjonno]

I work in a school and had about 6 HPChromebooks do exactly the same. External mouse worked fine, but the touchpad would not respond. I opened one up and cleaned the heads like other suggestions with no success. I reset the Chromebook back to factory aswell.

I went into chrome settings, About Chrome, ran the updates. All Chromebooks are working perfectly again.