Keyboard shortcuts/mouse buttons/etc not working?

[ramparts]

I have a black MacBook (bought June '08). Lately (the last few days or week), every now and then certain keyboard shortcuts and mouse functions would stop working. From what I can tell, they include:

-Both Mighty Mouse functions (dashboard middle button and Exposé side buttons)
-Apple-Space for Spotlight
-Apple-Tab and Apple-` to switch windows
-All Exposé functions - mouse to any corners, and the F3 and F4 buttons (all the other fn buttons seem to work fine)

At first it seemed like it happened a) after I finished using Vista in Parallels 4 and b) after I installed my new RAM (2x2 GB Crucial), since the first couple of times it happened it was after I turned off Parallels, and this all started right around when I installed the RAM. But lately I haven't even used Parallels and this still happens. It used to happen every few days, now it's happened twice in 24 hours. The only solution I've found is a restart.

Any idea what could be going on?

 

[és:]

Are you using a third party (like logitech, for example) mouse and keyboard, or doe this happen on the board of the MacBook?

 

[ramparts]

MacBook - this happens both with MacBook keyboard shortcuts (which of course are built in) and on the Mighty Mouse.

 

[ramparts]

Alright, so I think I've figured out the cause - sometimes (but I don't think every time) when I come out of my iTunes artwork screensaver, the problem occurs. Force quitting the screen saver process (which lists as non-responsive) in Activity Monitor solves the problem and everything goes back to normal.

Can anyone think of possible solutions now? Still don't know if the new RAM is the cause.

 

[CyrusOz]

my F7 through to F12 buttons only work with itunes, i can't get any of them to work with expose or anything else..

 

[MistaBungle]

The only way is to pull out the RAM and see. Since you know exactly what causes the problem, pull the RAM out, do you scenario and decide for yourself. Let us know the result.