One click, two clicks, three clicks...crap

May 23, 2012 5:53 PM

MacFilter: Asking for a friend. He has a MacBook 6,1 running Lion. When he got it, it was running Snow Leopard and he upgraded a few days later. Ever since, the cursor quite frequently is one or more clicks behind.

Other specs if helpful: 2.6 GHz, 2GB ram.

He has reformatted and reinstalled to no avail. I've seen it do this. If clicks on, say, Documents, in Finder and then clicks Applications, it will highlight Documents after he has clicked on Applications. Sometimes it gets more than 1 click behind. It's a bit weird. The click actions don't seem to be out of order, it's just performing them in a delayed way.

It's not a lag...if he just waits, it doesn't do anything. It's only after clicking again that something happens.

Please let me know what else you need to know or want him to try.

The Google has not helped but maybe we weren't using the right search terms.

posted by sio42 to computers & internet (7 answers total)

This is kind of a stab in the dark, but cursor issues make me think video card. Does the problem persist if you switch the Energy Saver setting for Better Battery Life/Higher Performance to the opposite?
posted by bcwinters at 6:30 PM on May 23, 2012

i don't see a setting in Energy Saver for that on his MacBook or my Air. we're both running Lion.
posted by sio42 at 6:48 PM on May 23, 2012

My bad, it's only the Pro models that have the two video card options you can switch between.
posted by bcwinters at 8:31 PM on May 23, 2012

Have you tried disabling all but the essential Trackpad gestures and movements (System Preferences > Trackpad)? Try turning off things like Smart Zoom and see if it gets any better.

If not - have you tried plugging in a wired mouse to see if the effect is the same?
posted by jim.christian at 10:57 PM on May 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

jim.christian - good ideas! i'll post back later today after he's had time to fiddle.
posted by sio42 at 8:32 AM on May 24, 2012

It might be a weird accessibility thing but I've never seen anything like that. It could be hardware though. The mouse button travel is adjustable via an internal screw.

But before you do that: Is this happening with mouse clicks only? Do trackpad taps do the same thing? What happens with an external mouse?
posted by chairface at 7:45 PM on May 25, 2012

well, turning off a lot of the gestures seems to have cleared things up. it's just taps on the trackpad not clicking the trackpad.
he didn't try an external mouse.

it still does a fake click once in a while...when he clicks on something it won't actually be selected or it will act selected but not do the action.

but at any rate, it's far less annoying.

thanks mefites!
posted by sio42 at 8:11 PM on May 25, 2012