I have a nasty problem with my Powerpook G4...

Hello there, I'm new to these forums and I wondered if someone could help me out.

I have a PowerBook G4 and last night I tried to highlight and select a program in my 'Mac HD' and it got stuck in one place all the time and I couldn't do nothing about it. I also tried using the scroll bar to go up & down but it would still get stuck in the same place.

At first I thought it was my touch pad playing up but it wasn't as I found out in 'Safari' while browsing the net. I was able to move the scroll bar up & down without no problems but then I found another serious problem.
When I tried to type in a new web address, the keyboard automatically typed in lots of letter k's like 'kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk' for example.
I then thought, maybe it's a problem with my keyboard costantly pressing down the 'k' key but I don't think that was the problem cause when I manually deleted all the 'k's, instead of highlighting them all, I was able to write whatever address I wanted without any 'k's

I tried going into 'System Preferences' and I was unable to click any icon but again, I noticed 'kkkkkkkk' at the top where you would normally type in a keyword or letter to find something quickly that you wanted.

Later on I discovered there was a link with the letter 'k' to almost every action I chose. As I first mentioned when I tried to open a program in my 'Mac HD', the cursor always become stuck on a set of pics which began with the letter K. I tried going into 'itunes' and when I tried to go into another playlist, it would always get stuck with the playlist that began with 'k'.

What confused me after was that while trying to open an application, the highlighted cursor got stuck on something beginning with the letter 'L'.
Also remember that I was able to write whatever I wanted in my Safari web browser address bar after manually deleting all the dreaded 'k's like I mentioned before...

Sorry for this poorly constructed description, any help would be greatly appreciated...

Chundles said:

You don't have a virus - there are none for Mac OSX.

What you have is a dodgy keyboard with something affecting the area around the K - it's intermittent so there's probably something in there moving around.

But it's definitely not a virus.

Click to expand...

That's what I thought when you mentioned my keyboard but WHY is it I have no problem writing a web address on the 'Safari' without any bloody 'k's?

Thanks

Chundles said:

Dunno, maybe the problem only happens when you type a K. Can you take the keyboard out?

And please change the title of the thread to more accurately reflect what is going on - you don't have a virus and saying "I have a virus" is likely to attract a very inflammatory response when the majority of the members here (as much as I love them there are a bunch of folks here just waiting to yell at you) wake up in the next hour or so.

Just say something like "Help me with a keyboard problem" or similar.

And with that, it's nearly 2am so I'm off to bed.

Click to expand...

Chundles, chill out. In this thread title I said "I think I have a nasty virus, I didn't say just say I had one. I'm still quite new to all this stuff so I apologize to you and anyone else if the title seemed a bit off and I will change it.

I can't take the keyboard out, I will experiment with other things and if there is no change then I guess I should take it to the Apple store...

Thanks

Chundles said:

😕 😕

I was just giving you a "heads up" - nothing malicious about it, I just hate seeing people with genuine problems with their Macs get flamed by some of the more militant members of the forum.

Sorry if you took it the wrong way, there was no anger in my post.

Click to expand...

Hey thanks and no worries.

I did in fact find out what the problem was and it was nothing to do with the keyboard, it was my Gamepad Companion software which caused havoc to my Mac. That software lets me use my Playstation 2 pad via a usb converter to play games.

I reinstalled my OSX from dvd and it sorted out the problem temporarily, then it came back again.
To stop the problem completely I just had to press one button on the configuration screen!

Thanks again to everyone that helped me out, was much appreciated...