Internal keyboard and trackpad shortcut issues?
I have a 2009 aluminum MacBook with a 15" display, 2.4 GHz CPU, 250 GB HDD, and 2.0 GB RAM, running OS X Mavericks. My HD is also partitioned, so I have about 50GB partitioned off and running Windows 7.
Several weeks ago, my dog slobbered on my MacBook's keyboard - I cleaned it up, and the computer had no issues with powering on or off or with any other basic mechanics. However, the keyboard and trackpad suddenly started acting very strange. For example, pressing the "A" key would open the finder, pressing the "S" key would open spotlight, but none of the keys would type properly into a word document. Also, whenever I selected an app on the dock with the trackpad, the Finder would open and the app would be selected in the finder - but apps will no longer automatically open from the dock.
I purchased an external Logitech USB keyboard to test out, and it worked well enough - I was able to process word documents with the external USB keyboard, no problems (although I am not able to switch over to my Windows partition by pressing the Option key on the external USB keyboard, or boot into safe mode using the USB keyboard, which is annoying...probably just need to reset the keys or something?).
I left my MacBook powered off for a couple days, and when I powered it back up, the internal keyboard and trackpad problems had vanished, and everything was working normally again! I assumed that the dog slobber had finally dried up and the problem had fixed itself. I could switch over to Windows 7 without a problem, and everything was working normally!
Flash forward about 10 days, and all of the sudden the exact same internal keyboard and trackpad issues pop back up. And they have persisted ever since for about 3 weeks now. I have searched forum after forum and tried every suggested solution - including Terminal commands - but nothing has fixed it so far. Clearing the PRAM hasn't worked, either. Fiddling with the battery hasn't worked. Nothing has worked.
That said, it's difficult to test many solutions when the internal keyboard is malfunctioning. Obviously this is an older MacBook, so I no longer have Apple Care for it.
I use Windows 7 to game, and I would really like to be able to switch over to game again - also, I'm going to try to sell this MacBook and put the money towards a brand new one, so the internal keyboard really needs to work!
Do these specific internal keyboard/trackpad issues sound familiar to anyone? And how can they be fixed? Thanks in advance!
MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.8), iPhoto '09