Screensavers cancelling on Macbook

[croyd1]

Just bought a new Macbook and everything's great except the screensaver facility. I'm primarily using the one that previews album covers from itunes, but it doesn't really matter which one I use. They all cancel themselves after a few seconds as though the trackpad's been activated, even though I'm nowhere near it.

I've obviously tried restarting to see if it makes a difference and it usually does for about an hour. The screensaver comes on and stays on. But I'll do some work and check it again later by activating a hot corner and it quits again after a few seconds like before.

This is hardly the end of the world, but it is pretty annoying. Anybody else had this happen on Snow Leopard and is there a way to fix it?

 

[fryke]

Could be one of two things:

1.) Faulty hardware. The trackpad could somehow "think" it's been touched. Difficult to test, I'd say. You'd have to somehow deactivate the trackpad completely and use a mouse for that.

2.) Some software kicks in and wakes the screen. Much easier to test: Just clean install the OS on an external harddrive or a large USB memory stick and boot from that, test the screensaver for a couple of hours. Also defines whether it's a hardware or software issue. (Without installing additional drivers and software, of course.)

 

[croyd1]

Thanks for the response, fryke. I tried the first option you gave by going into Universal Access and clicking the option to disable the trackpad whenever a mouse is connected. The screensaver still acted in the same way, so I'd like to try option 2. Forgive my ignorance, but I've never 'clean installed' before. What do I have to do?

 

[fryke]

Ah. Well, this option per se doesn't exist anymore. I just mean to take a clean (empty) harddrive or big-enough memory stick and install the OS on that using the system installation disc.