12" 1 Ghz PB keyboard has TOTALLY freaked out

[QCassidy352]

My PB was working fine this morning... a few minutes ago, I went to use it, and the keyboard doesn't work anymore. Some keys type the wrong thing ("a" types "*"), and some don't do anything at all.

This happened out of nowhere. It's a rev. B 12" powerbook that I've had for 8+ months with no problems whatsoever. Repairing permissions and restarting didn't help.

I'm typing this on an external keyboard attached to the PB now, and it works fine. I'm really confused, and could use all the help you can give. Thanks!

[wide]

Go into Sytem Preferences and find the Keyboard and look for anything that seems out of place. Try resetting the keyboard to factory settings (default). I don't have a Mac in front of me so I'm not too sure about it. Maybe when you connected the external keyboard, your PowerBook's keyboard turned itself into additional keys for the external one. Also, make sure your keyboard's language is set to English and not something else--that often has something to do with it. Try booting from the Panther CD, and see if you can type on your regular keyboard normally. It doubt it is a hardware problem.

[abhishekit]

Try resetting the PMU. Sometimes when it gets messed up, it affects the keyboard.

[saabmp3]

I have a 12 inch 1.33 GHz model and my keyboard has done this twice too. I just have to restart when it happens :(. I have this feeling it might be a recall from apple eventually.

BEN

[QCassidy352]

ok, well, I feel *really* stupid (but not quite as stupid as i would feel if others hadn't been confused also).

Why do I feel stupid? Because apparently there's this little key called "number lock..." :o :eek: I've never had occasion to use it, and didn't notice that it was on (it's not so obvious on a PB keyboard)...

So yes, the Great Keyboard Freak-Out was number lock, and yes I feel suitably foolish. Thanks for the replies anyway.

[question fear]

dont feel too bad, i did the same thing at work, became convinced our kb in the cash office had gone bad because the num lock was off...apparently one of the other supervisors hates the num lock (he hits the side numpad by accident i guess) and always switches it off.
its easy to overlook.
-carly