You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Steve Eugene Author

Level 1

11 points

Unresponsive Keyboard and Trackpad problem FIXED/RESOLVED

I've been dealing with this issue since early December myself.
I purchased the MBP in November and had nearly a month with out any issues.

I spent nearly two hours on the phone with Apple Care via a specialist trying to diagnose the problem yesterday.
He did mention that they believe neither the 10.5.1 update or the MBP 1.1 update were to blame for occurrence of this issue. (I remain slightly skeptical)

Let me give you a short rundown of my problems and what I've done to help resolve the issue. Hopefully it'll help some of you.. or help me (with some of everyone else insight) if it happens again.

The symptoms:
keyboard and trackpad become unresponsive.
The problem is intermittent but often is completely unresponsive at start up.
USB mouse and keyboards have full functionality.

Kernel panics often occur as well. Usually this occurs just after the keyboard and track pad experience extreme intermittent "on and off" periods.
The only option is to do a hard-restart which my or may not resolve the unresponsiveness.

Things I've addressed in my particular case:

1. The battery recall issue - my battery (6N745288YFTA) is OK.
2. Resetting the PMU - no change.
3. Re-installing both the 10.5.1 and MBP 1.1 updates - no effect.
4. pressing the Function + S key at start up and running /sbin/fsck -fy The HD is said to be OK
5. I just finished an Archive and reinstall of Leopard = this seems to have fixed the issue for the moment. I have not run the Updater to bring the OS back to it's fully updated form yet.

The Archive and Re-install DID NOT WORK.
Even upon downloading and installing the 10.5.1 and 1.1 update, I'm still back at square one.

I've also been experiencing these phantom keystrokes to the eject key and backlight myself lately.

I've resolved to wait for the 10.5.2 official release to see of that helps... If not then I'll break down and send my machine in for service.

_____________________________________
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro3,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP31.0070.B05
SMC Version: 1.16f10
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled

THE SOLUTION:

This is a HARDWARE problem!

After playing around with removing the battery and noticing that this often returned functionality to the keyboard I surmised that this had some sort of physical aspect.
Sure enough, there is a section of copper colored tape/wiring exposed in the batter slot that is slightly bowed where it's smallest.
When I depressed this with my finger tip on this portion to basically flatten it out flush against the housing; I found that all functionality was restored!

You can see the portion in the picture below.

I haven’t had any problems AT ALL since I took a piece of napkin and taped it down to sustain pressure on this portion of bowed tape/wiring.

I have yet to call AppleCare to see what they suggest I do.
I will post a reply here when I hear their suggestion.

Mac Book Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.1), 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 GB 667 MHz SDRAM

Posted on Jan 27, 2008 3:18 PM

Top-ranking reply

metaweb

Level 1

40 points

Posted on Apr 14, 2017 8:01 AM

Same problem here. It's a design issue. My keyboard and trackpad also stopped responding, couldn't get past login ... The problem is that Apple ran the trackpad cable over the top of the battery. And as Macbooks get thinner and thinner, component are snugger and snugger. So, when the battery heats up, and it will when watching YouTube videos or running video editing programs as many of us do, the trackpad cable gets unseated from the connected to the trackpad board. I have an Early 2015 Macbook Pro, and this problem surfaced just after the 1-year warranty period expired. If I turn my Macbook Pro over and firmly press in an up and down motion over the bottom case (under where the trackpad, trackpad cable and battery are all 3 aligned, then turn on my laptop, I once again have a working keyboard and trackpad and can login as normal. This is not what one would expect from such an expensive laptop. As these things get thinner and thinner ... problems will crop up more and more.

Apple Support will tell you to reset your NVRAM and SMC ... but that is the canned reply. Resetting those do fix other problems: keyboard backlights and other wonky issues ... but it will not reconnect an unseated trackpad ribbon. And if you are out of warranty ... just purchase a replacement ribbon on ebay and install it yourself. Taking it to an authorized Apple Repair Center will cost you an arm and a leg, especially outside of the USA where there's no price regulation.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/821-00184-A-Touchpad-Trackpad-Cable-for-Apple-MacBook-Pr o-Retina-13-A1502-2015-/111975916834?hash=item1a1248e522

The link above is only for the Early 2015 (March) MacBook Pro ... you will need to research your models ribbon for replacement.

View in context

382 replies

Mar 26, 2014 9:48 PM in response to _LB

Here's a few options for the scrolling problem:

Trash the system prefs found in your user Library that relate to the appledrivers for mouse and bluetooth mouse and keyboard. Restart or log out/in, then if all OK, empty Trash.

There is a Terminal command I found that will supposedly reverse the scroll for all input tools (use at your own risk):

From a Terminal window:

sudo defaults write /System/Library/User\ Template/Non_localized/Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences com.apple.swipescrolldirection -bool false

Or you can try the free app called Scrollreverser. No personal experience with it but worth a shot if nothing else works.

https://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/

Apr 10, 2014 2:14 PM in response to Kris Selvig

I see this thread has been long and winding, but hopefully I will find the solution I've been looking for here since the thread has recently been revived.

I own a 2009 silver MacBook (which became MBP the following year, I believe) running OS X Mavericks, and all of my important documents are backed up using Time Machine. My 250GB HD is also manually partitioned (no Boot Camp) to run Windows 7 on about 60GB of HD space. I mainly use my Windows 7 partition for PC gaming.

A couple months ago, my internal keyboard started behaving erratically. It remained responsive, but the keys began performing strange tasks, for example, pressing the "D" key would minimize my browser window, the "A" key would open Finder, the "Option" key no longer functioned at startup, etc. The trackpad also began to behave somewhat erratically - using the trackpad to open an app on the dock would instead select the app in Finder, and I would then have click the app in Finder to get it to finally open.

I bought a cheap Logitech USB Windows keyboard to test the issue. Most of the time, the Logitech keyboard works fine for simple typing, but it was still frustrating because the Alt key would not allow me to access the boot screen on my Mac, so I was unable to switch between Operating Systems (apparently this is an unresolved issue for some using a Windows USB keyboard with a Mac). On rare occasions, the Logitech keyboard would also experience the exact same malfunctions that the internal keyboard had been experiencing - the "D" key minimizing the browser, etc. I have been able to correct this issue with the USB keyboard by fiddling with the "Windows" key. (Not sure how relevant this is, but I thought it was a weird coincidence.)

I left my MacBook alone for about a week, powered it off, and upon coming back to it discovered that I could again use the "Option" key to access boot options on startup, and the other keys were also functioning normally again.

Fast forward to a few weeks later, and the same exact problem is back again. I decided to go into my Mac and change my startup disk to my Windows partition and just work from there, but then I didn't have access to all of my iTunes music and documents on my Mac, so that was still frustrating (I did use a free trial version of MacDrive to access them for a while and transfer some things to a flash drive). I also couldn't use my "Option" key, so there was no way to go back into OS X and change my startup disk again.

Then Windows crashed, and I was forced to power off my MacBook and use an old HP laptop for about a week. Today, I went to power on my MacBook just to see - and VOILA! - I could again use the "Option" key to access boot options and gain access to OSX, re-partition and reinstall Windows, etc. Now the internal keyboard and trackpad seem to be functioning normally once again. But I'm afraid that it's only a matter of time before the issue reappears and I'll have to again spend hours trying to fix or work around the problem.

I've tried running command lines and have also tested every other solution I've been able to find online, but nothing seems to work. I've also removed the battery, but I don't think the wire trick applies to my later model MacBook.

I've been told that I could need a new top case, but my internal keyboard was never really unresponsive - it was simply malfunctioning and performing random tasks. In fact, I'm using my MacBook to type this right now and everything is functioning normally. Plus, I can't really afford a new top case right now.

So if anyone knows what else might be causing this issue, please let me know ASAP.

Thanks in advance for any help you are able to provide.

EthanRT

Level 1

0 points

May 1, 2014 8:09 PM in response to Steve Eugene

This may be kind of a blast from the past for folks at this point, but I have to say: the index card trick works. (Originally found at http://jasonrobb.com/v2/2008/11/24/macbook-pro-unresponsive-keyboard-trackpad-so lution/.) My early 2008 model 15" Macbook Pro, which I fully expect to live to the ripe old age of 10, recently started losing keyboard & trackpad functionality simultaneously at unpredictable intervals. This was happening about 2-3 times a day and was pretty disruptive to my work/etc. I tried the index card thing over a week ago, and it hasn't happened again since.

(Extra note for anyone having the same problem: I pinpointed the two-finger trackpad right-click as a cause of some temporary loss of functionality, so I disabled that function before trying the index card fix. It didn't solve the problem, but I do believe that it lessened the frequency of permanent functionality loss. As a superstition, I've kept this feature off and re-learned to right-click with the Control key.)

Apr 5, 2016 6:33 PM in response to Steve Eugene

I just blew the dust off of my old Macbook Pro and no keyboard or mouse activity. At first I stuck a piece of paper in the spot described in the first post but no joy. I then folded a thin piece of paper so it would press down on the exact spot when I installed the battery and I couldn't believe it; everything works. Many thanks for this fix!

Dec 26, 2016 4:14 AM in response to Steve Eugene

I saw this solution six years ago and decided to give it a try only with a tiny piece of powerful duct tape. Unfortunately didn't consider the 'napkin part' so no pressure was actually added to the ribbon.

Man, I've just tried it again (w/ a piece of folded paper), and no more freezing, no more struggle.

6 years of struggle, poof! Vanished... You have no idea the relaxing feeling and gratefulness. Way to go Steve!

May 20, 2017 6:39 PM in response to Steve Eugene

I need to see what this looks like

Aug 6, 2017 12:47 PM in response to Steve Eugene

Hey, I also got the same problem and i'm out of warranty. what i'm suppose to do?? please direct me!

Unresponsive Keyboard and Trackpad problem FIXED/RESOLVED