re to fix trackball in article br a auvm american edu br a auvm american edu writes the trackbal on my pb no longer moves in the horizontal direction when i called the nearest authorized apple service person i was told that it probably needed replacing and that would cost me over ouch can anyone recommend a less expensive way to fix this problem one strange symptom of the problem is that when i take the ball out of the socket and shine a light into the hole i can make the cursor move horizontally by moving the wheel with my finger it works fine that way but won t work if i turn off the light any suggestions or comments ben roy just a poor college student internet br a american edu ben since you re obviously adept enough to understand how the trackball works the only thing short of repairing it that i can think of is a thorough cleaning of all the parts and then checking for the proper placement of the little blue rollers since they aren t fixed in position on their stainless steel pins you might try sliding them into a slightly different position on my powerbook i can slide them almost completely out of contact with the trackball in fact one of the notes from sumex on fixing the trackball advocates sliding the roller so that its edge contacts the ball not the center cylindrical area i ve done this with my pb and it does seem to improve the feel but needs to be adjusted from time to time i just popped open one of our office s pb s and while there isn t as much latitude for movement one could still adjust the roller slightly if your pb is the same it might help i would suspect the most likely culprit to be a slippery blue roller if you can take it out clean it with a mild soapy solution or isopropyl alcohol also be sure the ball is grease free if you drop the ball in minus the retaining ring roll the ball and see if it is actually causing the axle to spin if all this still doesn t solve it then maybe a new one is in order it could be an electrical connection in which case replacement would be necessary but my experience with both mice and trackballs has been that dirt has been the normal problem not an electrical malfunction hope this helps murray murray m altheim ils ont l orteil de bouc d un chevreil l oreille instructional consultant la corne d un chamois la face vermeille csu sacramento comme un rouge croissant dancent toute nuict altheimm csus edu dedans un carrefour ou pres d une eau qui bruict
