keyboard temporary malfunction 10.8.4

Hello Petr,

thanks for reporting about your experience with the technicians, I am sorry to hear that they won't replace the topcase for free, despite admitting that it is a defect of the machine. I am afraid that replacing the topcase would cost several hundreds euros, perhaps as much as a new WIndows laptop!

I have no resolutive advice to provide, unfortunately: on my side, even after the update to 10.8.5, the problem is still occurring. intermittently: when the "t y u i o" keys get unresponsive, and this happens about every one or two hours, I hit all of them at the same time and they usually restart working. If they don't, I resort to a bluetooth keybord, sufficiently small and light to be placed on top of the other: I'll wait that something else breaks down in the macbook, before resorting to the assistance.

I agree with you, one would expect a better experience with Apple service, and with Apple hardware, given the price tag: after this bad experience, when I bought an all-in-one for my wife, I preferred a Sony VAIO !

Best

Andrea

I'm experiencing exactly the same problem with my 2011 MBP. I'm still running 10.6.8, so not just 10.8.x users affeced. Resetting PRAM and SMC did nothing for me 😟

Hopefully someone comes up with a viable solution, as this is driving me insane.

Hi Antti,

did you solve the problem with your keyboard? My problem is still there, even after update to Mavericks 10.9.1, did you find a fix? I am reluctant to resort to the assistance, as I am still convinced it's a software issue (for instance, right now it's working).

Cheers

Andrea

Hi Andrea!

The problem got "fixed" by getting a new MBP. The keyboard issue in the old one is still waiting to be solved, I guess it has to be hauled to a service point someday.

BR, Antti

yesterday I went to a local apple VAR and got the shift key rebuilt.

It appeared that everything was working.

When I got home and began real work I found problems again and tracked it down to the tyuio keys.

The began not to work in lower or upper.

I ran Disk Warrior which seemed to help but then continued having problems.

I tried pressing the tyuio keys all together that someone else had suggested and that brought back my lower case until this morning. Then they were gone again.

WHen I plugged in an external keyboard, it was all good.

I don't have anything with Bluetooth on this Mac. I do have a bluetooth keyboard. I was thinking of bring that up and checked my Bluetooth connection. Bluetooth was already on on the Mac Book. I turned it off. All keys and left shift NOW WORK!

So, try turning your Bluetooth off.

Regards,

Ty Ford

and then an hour later, the problem again became sporadic.

Darn!!

Hi Ty Ford,

Sorry to hear it didn't work. I had several such experiences with actions that seemed to fix the issue for a while, and then the problem resurfaced. I am afraid that there was no causality link between my actions and the keyboard issues, it was just a coincidence. The most strange thing is that since June last year, when the problem started, I have experienced one long period, in October if I am not wrong, during which the keyboard was working fine again, without issues with the t y u i o keystrokes. It was all fine for several weeks, perhaps after one of the system updates, I am no more 100% sure (I should have kept a log, I know); then all of a sudden, without evident reasons, the problem started again. So I keep thinking that it is not a hardware issue, or perhaps it is, but coupled with some software issue which could be erratic.

After having spent months on this, uninstalling and reinstalling software, doing system restores and many other attempts, I do not recommend wasting more timr in search for a solution, to keep my sanity I just bought a bluebook keyboard and I am using it, occasionally checking if some update provides a fix.

Anyway, next time I buy a laptop I will not trust so much Apple for the quality of its hardware and software, something like this never happened to me before with much less expensive Linux laptops.

Apple do you hear your customers?

Best

After reading about someone who had a similar problem and described it as an issue with a swollen battery, I took my battery out and ran on ac power this morning. It's just been a short time (and we know how that is) but so far, all keyboard functions are normal.

The battery does not look perfectly flat. Whether the amount of distension is enough to cause the problem remains to be seen today.

I had a swollen battery a few years back that Apple replaced for free because it was a known issue. (Curiously, the woman in line next to me was charged for her swollen battery, so watch out for that.)

Regards,

Ty Ford

Hi Ty Ford,

I hope the fix you've tried is still working for you! Which is the version (or year) of your Macbook?

The swollen battery issue is indeed one of the causes that I have read about, but I thought it applied only to Macbooks in which the battery could be removed by the user. My Macbook Pro is an early 2011 one, with a battery supposedly not removable; though I certainly could remove it, I just don't know if the Mac would work on AC power only.

In earlier Macbook models, the keyboard cable runs under the battery, so indeed if it gets swollen it can cause trouble.

In the 2011 models and later, instead, the flat cable seems to stay safely away from the battery, as I've checked when trying to unplug and re-plug the connector.

This said, yours is one of those explanations which could be consistent with the intermittency of the problem, I'll have a second look at the battery.

Regards

Andrea

Hey There Adrea,

Six hours later and ttyyuuiioo TTYYUUIIOO, yep, still working.

This is a late 2007 13" white plastic MacBook. There's a thumbscrew on the bottom. You turn it 90 degrees and the battery plops out.

Best of luck with your pursuits!

Regards,

Ty Ford

www.tyford.com

Great! That's encouraging, I'll see what I can try along those same lines.

Best Wishes

Andrea

Andrea,

Darn. Afer 12 hrs (last night) it was back to being stupid, not totally, but aggravating.

Battery is back in now and that doesn't seemed to have made it worse.

very weird.

Anything on your end?

Regards,

Ty

PS: I don't know that the local mac repair place can guarantee that a new keyboard will fix the problem. Checking..

Hi Ty Ford,

sorry to hear about that. What you are experiencing corresponds to what I have observed in several months now: some action seems to serve as a fix, but the issue resurfaces later. Sometimes the t y u i o keys are unusable for several minutes in a row, some other times for hours, and I have experienced even a few weeks of respite, only to see the problem back for no evident reason.

I believe that any action I tried so far and which seemed to be a temporary fix was just unrelated with the problem, that's why I have given up, and I just use now a bluetooth keyboard. I have not tried yet to touch the battery, and I think I will not try, now that I suspect also that that fix is only an illusion.

Incidentally: which version of MacOS are you using? My problems started after an upgrade to 10.8.3, and did not go away with 10.9.X But maybe with a 2007 Mac you are still using an earlier version, right? This would rule out even the software upgrade as a culprit ...

Thanks

Andrea