Keyboard key makes weird sound / iChat cannot play sounds on wakeup

Question

Keyboard key makes weird sound / iChat cannot play sounds on wakeup

I am an extremely happy MacBook Pro user ( my dream machine, which I managed to acquire not without little sacrifice.. ), but currently I am facing two issues that bother me, greatly.

The most important one is that the 'w' key on my keyboard makes a 'click' sound when I click it, unlike all other keys. This really bugs me for I am typing all day long and its weird to hear a click once in a while, when you press 'w'. I hope there is a solution to this problem, by, perhaps removing it and pushing it in, again ?

The other is that iChat will not play any sounds ( i.e alerts from incoming messages ) when I use it after my macbook pro wakes up from sleep mode. The only solution to it is to restart the computer (restarting iChat doesn't help at all ).

Thank you very, very much in advance for any help you may be able to offer,
MarkP

MacBook Pro 17", Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Posted on Jun 18, 2006 12:46 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 18, 2006 1:29 PM in response to Mark Papadakis

Your key problem could be due to something UNDER the key. Get a can of compressed air, and in a well-ventilated area, put the long narrow flow-director tube on the can. Stick it under the key edge and blow. See if this dislodges anything. If not, I would recommend taking the machine to an authorized repair center. They can carefully remove the key and just see if perhaps it isn't clipped in correclty, or get a new keyboard for you.

For iChat, I would try the following:
1) Repair permissions by launching Disk Utility.
2) Delete iChat preferences, located in Library/Preferences/com.apple.ichat.plist. iChat will recreate these next time you launch.

Try iChat and see if the sound problem goes away.

If you find this note helpful or if your problem is solved, used the buttons "Solved" or "Helpful" above this response to indicate this.

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Answer 2

Jun 18, 2006 1:40 PM in response to SkipHaughay

Thank you very much for your response,

Indeed, the problem seems to be with something under the key. I will try the compressed air suggestion. Unfortunately, in Greece there is not such a thing as an authorized repair center. The only 'official' reseller in Greece is the most hatred company in the country, and noone even dares paying them a visit, let alone ask for their support.

As for iChat, it didn't solve anything. It seems that once it wakes up from sleep mode, iChat just won't play any sound whatsoever. Restarting iChat a few times doesn't help it, at all. The repair permissions procedure did repair some files here and there, but nothing on the iChat front.

Thank you,
MarkP

Your key problem could be due to something UNDER the
key. Get a can of compressed air, and in a
well-ventilated area, put the long narrow
flow-director tube on the can. Stick it under the
key edge and blow. See if this dislodges anything.
If not, I would recommend taking the machine to an
authorized repair center. They can carefully remove
the key and just see if perhaps it isn't clipped in
correclty, or get a new keyboard for you.

For iChat, I would try the following:
1) Repair permissions by launching Disk Utility.
2) Delete iChat preferences, located in
Library/Preferences/com.apple.ichat.plist. iChat
will recreate these next time you launch.

Try iChat and see if the sound problem goes away.

Reply