Forums | MacLife

MacBook (13"), Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHZ, running 10.5.2


A few days ago I gave my MacBook a thorough cleaning with some alcohol and cotton balls. After I was done the Command/Apple key was acting as if it was being held down. The physical key was not jammed, stuck, or sticky but the system was acting as if it were.

For example I couldn't type normally, the common letter was not registered but if I had a window open and pressed W the window would close. If finder was open and I hit N a new window would open.

Since the problem I tried unplugging the system from power and removing the battery. I let it air out in case some liquid was trapped. After a few hours I plugged everything back in and booted up. Same problem. Next I tried reseting the PRAM. The key combo was not accepted during boot and I couldn't get that to work.

At this point I couldn't do anything further, like run permissions or install the new firmware because I couldn't put in my password. I just turned it off and let it sit. After several hours I turned it back on and it magically worked. However, a new problem arose.

The command key is no longer "sticking" but a different modifier is. When I press delete Exposé activates, space bar adds a space and a "/", the letter o is capitalized, and my F row isn't working properly. F10, 11, and 12 are the audio keys but instead F12 activates Dashboard and the brightness keys don't work either.

I ran the firmware update, ran onyx and fixed permissions, and I also reset the keyboard layout, twice. No fix.


So, what am I missing?

Last edited by Zander (2008-05-22 1:01 pm)