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MacBook keyboard stopped working

I had a weird thing happen to me on my MacBook today. While doing some regular internet stuff like iChat and Mail, the keyboard stopped responding. The mouse pad continued to work normally. On a whim, I went to the iMac and then shared the MacBook's screen. I could type on the MacBook from the iMac. Then, once back at the MacBook, the MacBook's keyboard was again working! Has anyone else had a keyboard stop responding? Any thoughts on why, and why the screen share brought it back to life?

PowerMac G4, MacBook, iMac G5 (iSight), Mac OS X (10.5.1), PowerMac G3 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Posted on Nov 29, 2007 8:50 PM

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19 replies

Dec 2, 2007 3:03 PM in response to woodward98

I called Apple Support today, and after doing what they told me I haven't had a problem since (knock on wood!).

Try the following:

1) Shut down your MacBook and disconnect everything (including power adapter and battery)
2) Hold the power button for 10 seconds (resets something...don't remember what)
3) Put the battery back in and plug the AC adapter back in.
4) Turn on the computer and as soon as you press the power button, press in the following keys: apple, option, R, and P, and keep pressing. As soon as you turn on the computer, you normally hear the cool little apple chime. After you hear the chime, the screen will go black and act as if it's turning on again. Once the little Apple chime plays the second time, release the four keys.

Hopefully this will correct the problem. I did it about five hours ago and haven't had any problems since.

Ben

Dec 6, 2007 12:56 PM in response to Dr. Kellie

I have noticed that my keyboard freezes after the macbook goes into the disk-suspend mode.
Thus, when the battery gets completely drained while the macbook is closed, the computer goes off, but the memory gets stored on disk. After powering on, I get back where I was. This happens quite frequently, as the battery drains fast even while sleeping (blinking ligth). Much faster than the ibook did at least. Anyway, after the macbook is back on and working I experience the keyboard freezes. Shutting down and restarting solves the problem for me and the keyboard no longer freezes.

Dec 8, 2007 11:25 PM in response to BarnetteBW

BarnetteBW wrote:
I called Apple Support today, and after doing what they told me I haven't had a problem since (knock on wood!).

Try the following:

1) Shut down your MacBook and disconnect everything (including power adapter and battery)
2) Hold the power button for 10 seconds (resets something...don't remember what)
3) Put the battery back in and plug the AC adapter back in.
4) Turn on the computer and as soon as you press the power button, press in the following keys: apple, option, R, and P, and keep pressing. As soon as you turn on the computer, you normally hear the cool little apple chime. After you hear the chime, the screen will go black and act as if it's turning on again. Once the little Apple chime plays the second time, release the four keys.

Hopefully this will correct the problem. I did it about five hours ago and haven't had any problems since.

Ben


This really works on my MacBook, 6 days without sleepy keyboard.

thanks Ben.

Dec 13, 2007 12:56 AM in response to BarnetteBW

My new MacBook coming with 10.51 also have such problem, they KB stop working for 30 - 60 second few times everyday. After I've tried the method BarnetteBW said, the problem solve for the first week, but after that, the problem appear again! Very annoying when I was doing a presentation on stage and could not type anything! Apple, please care.

MacBook keyboard stopped working

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