Loose touchpad issues caused by the holding bracket. Hack solution inside

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Hello all,

I’ve had a core ultra 7 155H 13 framework laptop for about a year now. I use it as a daily driver and I love it. As a daily driver, the touchpad gets pretty hefty use. Over time, it got “loose.” Specifically, at the front of the diving board, a gap developed between maximum “up” position and the “top of the click” position. When you touch the pad, it depresses ever so slightly, and you can hear an audible click. However, that wasn’t a mouse click - when you push harder, you hear and feel a second click (like normal). The first click is movement / looseness in the touchpad. It’s quite annoying in my opinion. I’ve seen many posts both here and on reddit describing the problem, and the common advice is to adjust and clean per this post.

Then if that doesn’t work - contact support. I didn’t contact support, but it appears they send replacement touchpads regularly.

I believe this isn’t the fix for the vast majority of touchpad complaints, and this leads to “framework touchpads stink etc.” That post is for rubbing or sticking due to an alignment problem - which could create a preliminary click - but we’re talking about a different problem here - looseness.

The controversial part: Instead, I believe the solution is to physically bend the black touchpad holder bracket because the reason this happens is… that bracket deforms/bends over time in the first place. Remember, it used to work just fine - but then it didn’t. What happened? That bracket deformed from use. The following post talks about a different issue, but the steps are almost the same, and it has a good picture of the part.

Another common solution is to put tape in there. I suggest that’s a different solution to the same problem, but I don’t want tape gumming things up.

With the keyboard open, and before you take that bracket out - you can play with the touchpad to see what’s going on. You can feel the play in the touchpad creating the first click, but there’s no second click because that nub above his finger is still in the main chassis. Now remove that black bracket with the two screws and flip the bracket upside down on a flat surface. Touch the screwholes - I guarantee that bracket has ever so slight of a bend and seesaws on the flat surface. Now you know how much and which direction to GENTLY bend it back. NOT TOO MUCH - you don’t want to flex the touchpad upwards too far. The bracket is quite frail and bends very easily. I was kind of surprised how easy it was to permanently bend - THAT’s the root cause problem. Lastly, see those two wing springy things in the picture? Mine were almost flat. Bend those up - again, very gently. When at rest I left mine at maybe 1/2 a centimeter of gap or thereabouts. I have no idea at what position they started out in, but I don’t think flat is the answer. Reassemble. This fixed the problem for me 100% and the trackpad went back to feeling like it did when I first got the laptop. Unless a new bracket comes with a replacement touchpad, I don’t think getting a touchpad replacement will fix anything. Framework spends $, more waste is created, and you’re not happy.

Framework team: A suggestion. Develop a stiffer, less permanently bend-able black bracket we can purchase and replace the original with. I’m sure the current iteration will deform again over time and I’ll have to bend it back again. It’s quite frail in it’s current form. I think the touchpad is quite good for a non apple machine, but it’s reputation is getting ruined by this flimsy bracket.

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I have a similar problem, I disable touch to click since I have not gotten used to that. Sometimes it will not register a click at all, I will try your suggestions and report back.

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My trial with this has been unsuccessful, It gets better and worse without any reason to it. I must have dropped it at some time because one of the stand offs is broken so only 4 out of 5 screws are holding the keyboard module on.

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I have had the same issue for quite some time, too. I bought the Ryzen version in late 2023. I noticed about a about a couple of months after I received my laptop that the trackpad was sagging, specifically the front left side. It was notably harder for left clicks to register on that side of the laptop.

One of the temporary fixes I’ve heard when searching for a fix was to push hard on the center of the bottom of the trackpad (where you would normally press to middle mouse click). It likely had to do with the malleability of the bracket like you mentioned, but that only fixed the clicks for a few days and didn’t fix the lower gap on the front left of the trackpad. The issue has plagued we to this day.

I tried out your trick today; with the black plastic side facing down and the metal side upwards, I held the piece in the center and flexed the ends of the bracket downwards equally on each side. The metal compliance springs on each side were still flexable and not deformed, so I did not bother touching that. After test fitting and reinstalling the bracket back, I noticed a substantial improvement in audible left clicks. What’s even better is that the lowered gap on the front left side of my trackpad was gone. That side of the trackpad was raised back up to the height like when I first got my laptop!

Testing using a mouse tester, I noticed it took a slight bit of clicks to break in, but eventually it started registering clicks consistently. Granted, this is more of a fix to a design flaw. I do expect this issue to recur again, but nevertheless, thanks for making this post! Hoping this lasts longer, but even though it is a bit of a nuisance, the tradeoff of having to fix this every couple of months is something that I am ok dealing with.

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Adding:

I used this fix on my framework 13, but only bent the springs. The touchpad/trackpad has no play now, and is very tactile. My springs protrude more than 1cm from the bracket at the tips. Perhaps I overdid it but they will settle and it encourages tap to click which is good.

That said I want to clarify: metals do not bend forever in the same manner. That is why you can never really make a paperclip straight again. The molecules shift and settle every time you bend a metal in the same spot, and the metal (in this case the springs) become more stiff and less prone to bending back to flat. That said, they also become more brittle. If this procedure has to be repeated 2-3 times the springs will likely snap off rather than bend out. Then, it will cost a new track pad rather than a $2 bracket. But, really, I doubt this process will need repeating, because of the aforementioned increase in stiffness.

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My problem was the left button had almost completely quit working. When I opened it up the springs were mostly flat. Bending them upwards solved the problem. Thanks!

Note: be very careful with the screws. One of mine popped out when trying to put the bracket back and disappeared. Fortunately a magnet recovered it from somewhere on the mobo.

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OP here. Glad this “fix” is helping others. For my part, it’s been just short of 6 months and the problem hasn’t reoccurred. However, I mostly attribute this to switching to tapping, and I really only physically click when I need to right click, or when I need to click and drag. I would still immediately purchase a redesigned bracket if framework made one they thought could take more abuse. Still love my framework 13, it’s a great little machine.