Is my MBA haunted... can anyone help?

[Mattsan1]

Really odd problem with my 4 month old MBA...

Occasionally, out of the blue, the volume starts to increase. Its like someone is holding their finger on the volume up button.

It woke us up in the middle of the night the other day (when it was closed and supposed to be sleeping!) as the clicking got louder and just now whilst on the train I had an embarrassing time desperately pressing the volume down button as the MBA spontaneously tried to turn volume up to full for a couple of minutes...

It sometimes seems to stop when I press the volume up button too... (which is not a natural thing to do when the volume is getting louder and louder on its own!).

It has probably done this on 6 occasions over the past few weeks and I have tried a few things to identify the problem such as fixing disk permissions, running a virus scan and checking there are no programmes running at start up.

Any suggestions? Is it worth a full OS reinstall or am I going to have to call for technical help from Apple...

Thanks for any help you can offer - I'm stumped!

Matt

 

[Raejin]

That sounds really really creepy if I was you I would've peed myself. My best bet is going to genius bar if it is convenient for you. And I don't think it's a good idea to tear down the volume up key by yourself.

 

[pinktank]

do this http://osxdaily.com/2010/05/12/switch-your-mac-function-keys-to-work-as-standard-function-keys/

 

[Mattsan1]

do this http://osxdaily.com/2010/05/12/switch-your-mac-function-keys-to-work-as-standard-function-keys/

Thanks for the suggestion.

The plot thickens slightly...

I tried to enter System Preferences > Keyboard then try to select the Keyboard tab and System Preferences froze with a rainbow wheel and I had to use 'force quit' to close it down.

Only a full reset allowed me to gain access to to the keyboard settings and have now tried what you suggest.

I guess I will need to wait and see whether I now experience occasional appearances of the dashboard rather than volume increases...


Matt

 

[pinktank]

next in line:
SMC RESET

Shut down the computer.
Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if its not already connected.
On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time.
Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.



PRAM RESET

Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.