Weird keyboard problem - "3" "E" "D" "C" keys not working properly

Greetings,

one of my colleagues recently bought a second-hand PowerBook G4 15" 1.67 GHz, and today faced a problem we haven't been able to solve yet.

The problem itself is that keys "3" "E" "D" and "C" do not behave as they should. When writing text, keys "3", "E" and "C" do not enter any of their corresponding characters, while key "D" functions as the F1 key, decreasing the screen brightness. We have tried connecting an Apple wireless keyboard and its "3" "E" "D" and "C" keys work perfectly, opposite to what happens with those keys in the built-in PowerBook keyboard. By the way, NumLock is NOT enabled. We have also checked extensively all the keyboard setting we can think of, to no avail.

We figure it could be related to some keyboard shortcut that has accidentally triggered this, but my friend doesn't remember if he did such a thing. The only thing he remembers is that he had been using GarageBand before he encountered the problem, although this may not be relevant at all. Funny thing, these 4 keys are adjacent, that could mean something
Any suggestions? Thanks in advance,

Angel.

PowerBook 15" 1.67, Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on Apr 24, 2006 6:02 PM

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2 replies

Apr 24, 2006 7:26 PM in response to ahe

My guess is just a bad keyboard. Any liquid spilled in there? I think the circuit traces under the keys are arrranged in a row/column system, which would account for the column of 3EDC (although maybe not F1). The test is to swap a top plate & keyboard from a known good unit and try it. If that's it, you can buy the keyboard assembly only for about $100 IIRC. It's semi-painful to do the swap, but the ifixit site has good instructions.

Apr 25, 2006 1:02 AM in response to ahe

Hi,

thanks for your replie. My friend tells me the problem was gone this morning when he started using his PB again, so I guess it could have been because of a liquid that has evaporated (he swears that's not the case, but the palms of his hands sweat big time, sounds stupid but maybe that's the cause)

Thanks again.

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Weird keyboard problem - "3" "E" "D" "C" keys not working properly

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