Keyboard and trackpad are great but the clicker is very erratic. It will work 2 or 3 times and then nothing. Is this fixable? Is this a sign of some other issue that I need to address?

It is usually a problem with the charger board which is where the actual clicker button is. The plastic clicker is just pressing down on the charger board.

thank you, what is a charger board? how will I know for sure? can I fix it? is it significant of some other problem in the offing? did I do something I shouldn't have to make this happen?

thank you.

Is it possible that dust/debris has worked its way between clicker and charger board? As I said, it does work intermittently though not really at all for drag and drop. Is there access via either battery or cdr/dvd "sleeve"? Could I do damage by trying to vacuum dust. What should I avoid touching?

I looked at your repair manual for the pismo. Great job! Should it come to that, I'm pretty sure (with the proper tools) I could follow the directions but are all the steps necessary? I mean, for example, must the top be removed in order to service the bottom? Also, what would a "static free" service be?

I'm really getting desperate. I'm using a horrible old hand held mouse so it's like working with only one hand making some maneuvers close to impossible. I operate in 9.2.2 so just finding compatible anything is difficult.

I look forward to hearing from anyone with ideas. Thanks

The button on the charger board gets worn out over time.

The repair does require taking off the top case so don't do it unless you feel comfortable going pretty far into the machine.