Volume & Brightness Controls do not work on Keyboard
I have a five and a half year old Mac (purchased January 2009) running OS X 10.5.8. My keyboard recently became faulty, so I went to the Apple store and bought the exact same thing as a replacement. The keys all appeared to work fine and I was very happy. However, today I tried to play a song from my iTunes library and noticed the volume up and down keys did not work! I then tried all of the keys across the top and discovered that the brightness keys that are identifiable do not work... that in fact the brightness up is the F15 key (when it should be the F2 key) and the brightness down is the F14 key (when it should be the F1 key).
I have read through the forums on these boards and tried all the suggested solutions. I have:
1) Tried checking and unchecking the "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys." Restarted the computer. No change. Keys still don't work.
2) Reset the PRAM. Did it three times. No change. Keys still don't work.
3) Rebooted in Safe Mode to delete system caches. Restarted from the Apple menu. No change. Keys still don't work.
4) Someone suggested going to the Apple downloads page, but they didn't follow that suggestion up with anything else. I see updates for keyboard software, however they are all for wireless keyboards. My keyboard is wired, and it has the number pad on the right.
5) Run the command "sudo killall coreaudiod" in Terminal. No change. Keys still don't work.
6) Deleted the com.apple.soundpref.plist file in the Preferences folder in the User Library folder. No change. Keys still don't work.
7) Checked the Audio Midi Setup in Applications to ensure that the settings for output are set to 2ch- 24 bit and 44100.0 Hz for format. Which they are.
I will say that something did work! I downloaded and successfully set the function keys for volume and brightness using Spark (thanks to user turtlenecknz!). I will use this method as I think it is the only thing that will fix my problem (for now, at least). I'm just curious if there is a way to avoid using a software program as I'm not sure if it will need to be re-opened on system restart... for me, it boils down to reliability.
After reading this thread - Re: Mac Aluminum keyboard VOLUME KEYS not remapping - I've determined that the original keyboard I had for this computer was the MB110LL/A model. The Apple store gave me the MB110LL/B model. That is why I'm having this issue. Does Apple even carry the A Model any more? I found the A Model on Amazon, but it's $81 + $6 shipping- yikes! Does anyone know another site that sells it for less?
Any other troubleshooting suggestions are greatly appreciated! And, if anyone knows whether Apple carries the A Model any more (or know someplace I can get one cheaper than $87!), that is appreciated as well! Thank you to anyone that read this rather lengthy message, and then takes the time to respond.
