Middle row keys on keyboard stop responding....

Question

Middle row keys on keyboard stop responding....

Hello,

Has anyone experienced the middle row of keys (A through L) on an iBook G4 stop responding? This seems to happen if I have been using the G4 iBook for a little while (maybe 30 minutes but not consistent) but sometimes shorter than other times. At the moment, it seems totally fine but sure enough, I'll be in the middle of something and I can no longer type.

Does anyone know what may be happening here? I have not spilt any liquid into the keyboard and it is always fairly clean.

Thanks in advance for any help...

Cheers,
Vincenzo.

iBook G4, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Jan 14, 2008 8:36 PM

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Answer 1

spudnuty

Level 5

7,116 points

Jan 16, 2008 10:53 PM in response to Vincenzo Baldacchino

Hi Vincenzo,

Has anyone experienced the middle row of keys (A through L) on an iBook G4 stop responding?

The way a keyboard works is via a matrix see:
http://tinyurl.com/2gtmom
Now I haven't seen a schematic of an iBook keyboard but it works in a similar manner.
So when you see a whole line of keys go out then one of the main traces must go bad. In this case say A9 goes bad you'd lose that whole line of keys.
So in your iBook I'd pull the keyboard and look for:
Bad/dirty connector.
Broken cracked trace on the flex cable from the connector to the keyboard. Use a strong backlight and a magnifier and see if there are any cracks especially in the places where it's folded. If you find any they could possibly be repaired using conductive trace paint (hard to find and expensive) or rear window heater repair paint (cheap automotive store). You'd need to get it between the laminations of the flex cable. Syringe or incision?

Richard

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