Left touchpad button hard to press

Question

Setup

• Sony VAIO E Series
• Model: VPCEB1AGG
• Other model no: PCG-71312W

Problem

The left touchpad button doesn't work properly. It needs to be pressed a lot harder than the right button before it makes the click sound and registers a click in Windows. It feels kind of like there's something stuck under it.

What I've tried

• Lifting up the button to look underneath. This seems impossible since the button doesn't appear to be removable.
• Blowing with my mouth around the edges of the button in case crumbs are under it.
• Using a vacuum cleaner to vacuum around the edges of the button.

Answer 1

Rubber piece was dislodged

After disassembling the laptop, it turned out that a little rubber piece had somehow moved out of place and ended up under part of the left touchpad button. The rubber piece appears to be used to stop the light from each of the front LEDs from coming out of the holes for the neighbouring LEDs.

You can see this at the bottom area of the below picture. Note that you are looking at the underside of the touchpad and its buttons.

I cleaned the rubber piece and glued it back in its original spot so it wouldn't move. After reassembling the laptop, the touchpad button felt normal to press, like the right touchpad button.

Button contact not working

Unfortunately, the left button still required extra pressure even after the click sound has occurred. I fixed this by opening up the tiny little button mechanism attached to the motherboard and inserting a piece of aluminium foil in between the button contact and the little silver-coloured dome that pushes the contact.