Episode: 4464
Title: HPR4464: Replacing the Trackpad on my Laptop
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4464/hpr4464.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-26 00:57:10

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4464 for Thursday 11 September 2025.
Today's show is entitled Replacing the Track Bed on My Laptop.
It is part of the series Hardware Upgrades.
It is hosted by Claudio Miranda and is about 11 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is Claudio talks about how he took a gamble and replaced his faulty track
bed on his laptop.
Hey Hacker Public Radio, this is Claudio Miranda, recording an episode for Hacker Public
Radio.
It's been a while.
I wanted to talk to you today about my little project where I replaced the track pad
on my Clavo manufactured EVU EVC 141-12 laptop.
This particular laptop was sold a few years ago in Walmart and you can find it under different
names as well.
This one had the EVU name after that I think it changed to Motile, but both of those are
actual Walmart brands, I'll provide the links for that in the show notes.
These laptops along with a bunch of other ones that you find like that, like XPG and stuff
like that, Shinker.
Most of them are, they use a design that's created by a company called Clavo or Clavo, C-L-E-V-O.
This is a Taiwanese company and I'll provide the link in the show notes for that and what
they do is they manufacture the hardware to sell to these resellers where they go ahead
and they configure everything for their brand.
This one cost me, I bought it refurbished, cost me about, I bought it in 2022 I want to
say.
It's a 2020 laptop because it comes with a Ryzen 5, 3500U, the Vega 8 graphics so it's
not a bad laptop and there's one review that I found about this laptop.
The only thing that is not so great about it is that it only has one RAM slot, so single
channel speed RAM.
To compensate for that, the nice thing about this is that it has, aside from the, the
UnSATA slot that it has, it comes with a free, with an available NVMe slot, so M.2.
So I went ahead and I popped in a second drive in there and I left a windows install on
the drive that it came with and on the drive that I installed on the M.2 slot, I put Open
BSD on it.
So this has been dual booting or in a sense, just with two separate hard drives, I'm just
using the UEFI bootloader, the boot selector to go between the two operating systems instead
of using some sort of boot manager on one particular hard drive.
So I don't want to deal with that nightmare anymore.
But anyway, the trackpad also had an issue with it where, and in the review, if I can find
the link I'll put in the show notes, the review for this laptop said that the trackpad
reacted kind of odd because it would sort of track, but there was like a slight delay
in it and on top of that, it would never really land, the point it would never really land
exactly where you wanted to.
So there were some issues with this particular trackpad.
Well after a number of years, the trackpad started to fail.
So I needed to see if I could find a replacement for this and finally got to the point where
it was just unreliable and I had to use a USB mouse.
Now I could have purchased a wireless USB mouse, but which I intend to do as well, however
is I find it to be very, very clumsy in certain instances.
So I don't mind using the trackpad.
I know people have issues with that, but in honesty, I don't have a problem with that.
So I started looking for this particular trackpad itself, the module.
So the nice thing about it is that you can actually open this up.
It's very user-serveable.
And you can even replace easily, you can take out the trackpad.
There's just a few screws after you get into the inside and then it comes loose.
You just release the ribbon that goes to the main board.
Now the model for this is TDA147011T01.
Now this is where I had some difficulty because the only place I found online that sold
this exact part was in Japan.
And I had to go through some secondary reseller to be able to get it from Japan to the States.
And I was like, well, no, I'm not even going to bother with that.
So I said, let me hit eBay and see what I can find.
So I did find one of this exact model.
And I believe it was either in the Czech Republic or I know there was one in Germany.
And I was like, well, do I really want to, let me see what else I can find.
Now eBay did give me some other recommendations.
And some of these had the same, very similar, it was the same product number except the last
two digits were different.
So there was one that started with TDA147011T10.
And then there was another one that I found that ended in T20.
So I was like, well, I'm going to make a gamble here.
I'm going to test this out because the one that had the T20 at the end was actually a poll
from an XPG Xenia 15 gaming laptop.
I said, well, it's going to cost me almost $60 US.
So let me give this a test.
I can only assume that this is a revised model of that original one because of the last
the numberings at the end.
So I said, well, I've done all the research I can, I'll buy it.
So I went ahead and I ordered it, eventually came.
I went ahead and the part is exactly the same if you look at the pictures of it.
On the underneath, the cables were the same.
This one on the T20 was a little longer, which wasn't a big deal.
The one on the original was a little shorter just to keep everything neat inside.
So I went, I removed the original one, the T01, and installed the T20 using the original
cable that came with the laptop.
So I went in everything fit perfectly, turned it on, and well, unfortunately nothing happened.
I didn't get anything.
No reaction from the touchpad at all.
So I shut it down, I fiddle with the cables again, I went ahead and said, well, let me
try with the cable that the replacement trackpad came with.
So I went ahead and installed it, kind of managed to fit it in there somewhat neatly.
And then I went ahead and I sealed everything back up and turned it back on.
And I booted up to OpenBSD, still nothing.
So I said, well, hopefully it's not a bomb device.
So let me see, ah, let me boot into windows and see if maybe if it's just a fluke that
just an OpenBSD window detected, let me see if it detects certain windows.
So I decided to boot up in windows, cross my fingers, windows boots up, and lo and behold,
the trackpad started working.
So I was like, okay, at least it's working in windows.
You know, maybe I can send a bug report to the OpenBSD bugs team through their mailing
list and see, and I was collecting the info, I was going to collect the info in order
to send that information to them and see if they can get it to work.
So what I noticed, at least on the windows side, was that this trackpad was actually much
more precise than the original one.
So I guess my assumption was correct.
This is a revised model that improved on the bugs of the original.
And it was very precise, much, you would move your finger over and it would respond instantly.
So there was no delay as there was with the first one, the original one, nor was there
that issue where the pointer wouldn't land exactly where you wanted it to based compared
to the trackpad.
It was precise.
So I said, okay, great, at least I can use this in their windows and I'll do the information
about the boot into OpenBSD.
So I went ahead and boot into OpenBSD, I plugged in a USB mouse, and as I boot up, I accidentally
hit the trackpad and noticed the mouse move.
So I'm like, okay, now it's working under OpenBSD, so I don't know what happened.
I don't know if windows installed an update to the firmware for that, for this laptop
to allow it to work.
But since then, it's been working without issue on OpenBSD, so I have to say my gamble
paid off, but I did do my research.
I did do my research on the versions and just to see if there were any other models if
I can get the original one.
So at least, you know, if you have something like this that's very similar, whether it's
the same EVU model or the Motel model, the specs for pretty much the same, just pay close
attention to the product model number underneath in the trackpad if you ever need to do this,
and just get exactly that one or a newer version, but do your homework.
This for me was a gamble and I got lucky, but like I said, I did my homework on this.
So yeah, now it's working great, and I have a fully functional laptop again, and I'm
very happy.
So I just wanted to share that with you, and this will be my first recording for this
years.
I know I've been overdue for a show now.
There is one other show I'd like to do, testing Haiku with mumble, because I said that
hey, I wonder if it works with mumble in the New Year show for the last New Year show.
So I have a Haiku install at work, but I'm going to have to do this at home mainly because
I just don't have time at work to play around anymore, not at least not for a while.
So yeah, anyway, that is one of the ones that will be coming up, and hopefully I can record
some other episodes as well, and I hope that you do too, because Hacker Public Radio
is in need of shows, so if you can, please record an episode for Hacker Public Radio in
just a minute.
Alright, well, this is going to be it for me, have a good one, bye bye.
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