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Help! Macbook has Keyboard Problem

S

Sognatore

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Ok, here goes.

I'm the happy owner of a 2.0 GHz (black) macbook. But now an annoying problem keeps coming back. Every now and then some keys of my keyboard stop responding. The keys are: TAB, Caps Lock, Spacebar, left, up and down arrow, and backspace. All other keys keep working properly. 😕 After a while the unresponsive keys become responsive again.

The past few weeks I've been looking for a pattern, but I am unable to find one. 🙁 At first I suspected Microsofts Intellitype software (revenge! :apple:) which I've installed because of the wireless microsoft natural keyboard I like to use. But now I'm not so sure anymore. The problem doesn't just seem to occur when I attach of disconnect the keyboard.

Then I thought hibernation caused the problem. I noticed the problem usually occurs when I open the screen of my macbook and it awakes from its deep sleep. But then again, it does not always happen after waking up.

There are a couple of other things you should know. First of all, rebooting or even shutting down completely and powering back up (usually) doesn't help. But sometimes I manage to restore keyboard functions by putting my macbook to sleep and wake it up again. That trick doesn't always work of course... 😕

At this point I'm quite desperate. The guys and the Mac Reselling Store told me to format my hd and reinstall OSX. But I'm not sure that will solve the problem. It seems pretty persistant to me.

What I want to do is a doctor-like diagnose. First I want to figure out what's causing the problem, then I want to find a solution. Please help me with this, by sharing your toughts. It's highly appreciated.

Thanks!
 
Well I'm not sure if it's a hardware of software problem. If it is a software problem then formatting the hd and reinstalling os x will do the trick (well it should at least)

But if it's a hardware problem then you may have gotten some water in the keys or maybe even some dust (nuclear dust it would have to be)

Trying plugging in another keyboard (USB of coarse) and if it works fine then it's probably a hardware problem.

If it is a hardware problem try fully opening your machine and give the keyboard and all the keys a good cleaning from the inside.


Edit: I actually had a similar problem a while ago after I cleaned my keyboard. Some of the keys wern't responding and the ones that did gave me the wrong letter on screen. I restarted my computer and it worked fine though. And I'm running a MB.
 
Think it's software though

I don't think this is a hardware problem, as it comes and goes. Just now, my keyboard is working just fine. I also didn't spill things (liquids or nucliair dust...) in my macbook.

Another bit of information: the light of the caps lock key doesn't work when the problem occurs, nor does the key itself. After a while everything goes back to normal.

Is there some sort of keyboard initialisation file that might not properly everytime?

And also, is there something like a general error log? And if there is, where can I find it?
 
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