Well, I have a new (1.5 months old) rMBP-15. Everything was fine and perfect with the laptop.
But yesterday, I just happened to be using the laptop in a rather dark room for the first time since I bought it, and my interesting saga began.
The backlight of the keyboard came on, and I noticed that one single key, the :; key (the one to the right of L) had a cosmetic flaw. That key cap did not have black paint in one corner, rendering that corner transparent, and through which the back light from underneath was shining through.
Clearly, this was just cosmetic, and in hindsight, I should have let this just be as it is. But my bad, and figuring that my perfect laptop should have a perfect :; key, I went to the Genius bar at the local Apple Store.
They saw the little flaw, and quickly replaced that Key cap and off I went home, happy. But all through the subsequent hours, the newly replaced keycap kept acting up -- the bottom of the key cap had latched on to the underlying mechanism, but the top had not, and so the key cap was wobbly, very loose, and obviously, needing to be fixed.
So, off I went this morning again to the Genius bar, and they again quickly fixed the problem. They said that the previous day's replacement key cap was for rMBP-13, which was the reason that it had not attached itself well to my rMBP-15.
Everything looked good, the new keycap was feeling like new, and off I went home again, happy. But now, the horror began.
I reach home, fire up the laptop, and now, a bunch of other (unrelated) keys just would not work. Among them, the 0), -_, \| keys, and most important of all, the <Return> key. Without the return key, the laptop was essentially unusable. I also did not have available keys to do a SMC and PRAM reset (when I pressed the PRAM combination, the laptop would initiate recovery from the internet).
So off I went, flying back to the Genius bar, and showed them the problem. They insisted that the previous repair earlier in the morning was a simple external key-cap replacement job, and that they had not opened up the machine at all.
They ran the diagnostics, and the logic board etc. all came up fine. The keyboard diagnostics did not finish even after a long time. When a USB keyboard was attached, all keys were operable from that external keyboard.
So the Genius bar then said that the laptop needed a new top case, which was installed very quickly in less than 2 hours, and now, the machine is all fine and I am writing and posting this from it.
So, what began as a small quest to replace a cosmetically flawed single key cap ended up needing a a replacement top case (with new battery etc).
I (and the Genius bar) still don't know why the other keys failed this morning after the second key cap replacement.
But yesterday, I just happened to be using the laptop in a rather dark room for the first time since I bought it, and my interesting saga began.
The backlight of the keyboard came on, and I noticed that one single key, the :; key (the one to the right of L) had a cosmetic flaw. That key cap did not have black paint in one corner, rendering that corner transparent, and through which the back light from underneath was shining through.
Clearly, this was just cosmetic, and in hindsight, I should have let this just be as it is. But my bad, and figuring that my perfect laptop should have a perfect :; key, I went to the Genius bar at the local Apple Store.
They saw the little flaw, and quickly replaced that Key cap and off I went home, happy. But all through the subsequent hours, the newly replaced keycap kept acting up -- the bottom of the key cap had latched on to the underlying mechanism, but the top had not, and so the key cap was wobbly, very loose, and obviously, needing to be fixed.
So, off I went this morning again to the Genius bar, and they again quickly fixed the problem. They said that the previous day's replacement key cap was for rMBP-13, which was the reason that it had not attached itself well to my rMBP-15.
Everything looked good, the new keycap was feeling like new, and off I went home again, happy. But now, the horror began.
I reach home, fire up the laptop, and now, a bunch of other (unrelated) keys just would not work. Among them, the 0), -_, \| keys, and most important of all, the <Return> key. Without the return key, the laptop was essentially unusable. I also did not have available keys to do a SMC and PRAM reset (when I pressed the PRAM combination, the laptop would initiate recovery from the internet).
So off I went, flying back to the Genius bar, and showed them the problem. They insisted that the previous repair earlier in the morning was a simple external key-cap replacement job, and that they had not opened up the machine at all.
They ran the diagnostics, and the logic board etc. all came up fine. The keyboard diagnostics did not finish even after a long time. When a USB keyboard was attached, all keys were operable from that external keyboard.
So the Genius bar then said that the laptop needed a new top case, which was installed very quickly in less than 2 hours, and now, the machine is all fine and I am writing and posting this from it.
So, what began as a small quest to replace a cosmetically flawed single key cap ended up needing a a replacement top case (with new battery etc).
I (and the Genius bar) still don't know why the other keys failed this morning after the second key cap replacement.