Problem connecting wired aluminum keyboard

I just bought a new wired aluminum keyboard to replace the (really unpleasant) white plastic model for my iMac 17" running 10.5.8.
As soon as I plug it in, however, I get an error message saying that the newly connected USB device is drawing too much current and the hub is being disconnected. The keyboard and mouse are rendered inoperable, and I must reconnect the old keyboard to continue.
The computer works flawlessly in all other respects.
Thanks in advance for any ideas.
GCW

Thanks for your reply:
1. Installation instructions call for making physical connection before dealing with any software updates. That is not possible with the problem I have.
2. All software updates on the Apple Support site deal with minor keystroke glitch fixes. None indicate the need for an update to make the aluminum keyboard possible. If you know of one, I would be grateful to hear of it.
3. The one software update I did download was already superseded by the software I had: I have been very good about all updates for the life of the computer.
4. My other USB devices are a printer, a flash drive and an external disk. I cannot see any possible problem here.
GCW

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MacMini & wired aluminum keyboard

Hi,
I have macmini coreduo and new wired aluminum keyboard.
the problem is keyboard is not responding before OS loaded.
i mean i cant choose OS what i want or i cant start with safe mode my windows because keyboard doesnt work before OS loaded.
ALT button is not working or any button when bootscreen is appeal.
WHY and is anyone know, how can i fix it ?

Hi. I'm new to this forum lark but as i saw your comment i thought i'd have a go at answering it for you. I had exactly the same problem yesterday and spent over an hour with Apple Support trying to resolve it. The problem is that the new 'slim aluminium' keyboard is not totally compatible with the little mac mini. There is a firmware issure that means that befor os X kicks in, it does not comunicate with the wired keyboard. The guy at tech help went off for further help his end after an hour of telling me i was not pressing the c key properly - as i was trying to boot from the cd - but whilst he was away i managed it. I got my old bluetooth keyboard out of it's box and reconnected that and when i rebooted with the c key on that depressed it worked just fine. When i told him that, he said there must be a fault with my new keyboard and that he'd send me a new one. He called back to say that Apple were aware that there was an issue with this keyboard and the mini and that i should just check for firmware updates as they are looking into it. Nice....

Wired aluminum keyboard, iMac, Vol & brightness keys don't work

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Did you recently buy this keyboard? Sometime this year, that board's specs changed from needing an OS min of 10.4.11 to requiring 10.6.8. The new board's model number is the same but the F4 key has six small squares instead of the Dashboard icon, and the F7 through F9 keys have typical DVD player control icons.

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Since I change the original iMac G5 white keyboard, for the all new flat apple keyboard, I found a lot malfuntioning issues with my Mac.
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2) The keyboard layout do not recognize some keys:
3) And at last, there are any software that work as an update to fix this issue, Because the updaters do not find any Aluminum Keyboard attached.
Model Name:          iMac G5
Model Identifier:          PowerMac8,2
Processor Name:          PowerPC G5 (3.0)
Processor Speed:          1.8 GHz
Number Of CPUs:          1
L2 Cache (per CPU):          512 KB
Memory:          512 MB
Bus Speed:          600 MHz
Boot ROM Version:          5.2.5f1
Serial Number (system):          QP****XXSDX
Hardware UUID:          00000000-0000-1000-8000-0011243BAE5E
< Edited By Host >

Dear All:
The Aluminum Keyboaard in not compatible with Leopard.
BDAqua in other post give a correct answer:
Correct AnswerRe: Aluminium wired keyboard on Leopard
Aug 11, 2011 4:18 PM (in response to Pars_Ilhan)
OK, sorry, didn't see that!
Others that I hope are 10.5 compatible...
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/6746/ikey
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/14352/spark
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/6134/quickeys-x

Have a problem with Wired Apple Keyboard

Not sure where to post this problem.
C-key is not working on my Apple Wired Keyboard. However it is working fine on MacBook Pro to which keyboard is connected. More than that when I press Spacebar on Apple Keyboard multiple times C is showing up in the line on spaces with same intervals. Does anyone has a solution to this?
When I press C-key nothing is displayed.
When I press Spacebar multiple times I have the following result displayed: c c c c c c (only Spacebar is pressed)

alexanderkraynov wrote:
Some update, now when even pressing Spacebar c is not displaying. when restarting mabook pro and choosing the user - password field is automatically filled with dots. I guess some button is stuck.
Yeah that was going to be my reply. The C key is stuck.
In Lion there is not Repeat key feature so if a key is stuck it doesn't Repeat like it use to on older OS X versions.

Problem connecting iPhone to keyboard

Hi,
I have since a couple of weeks a new iMac.
When I want to connect my iPhone with the USB cable to my keyboard, I get the message that there is no bluetooth keyboard and the keyboard shuts down.
But I don't have a bluetooth keyboard...
This problem started when I received a new iPhone 3G because my 'old' iPhone 3G was broken.
Can anyone help me with this?
Best regards,
Danny

conimus wrote:
Hi,
I have since a couple of weeks a new iMac.
When I want to connect my iPhone with the USB cable to my keyboard, I get the message that there is no bluetooth keyboard and the keyboard shuts down.
But I don't have a bluetooth keyboard...
This problem started when I received a new iPhone 3G because my 'old' iPhone 3G was broken.
Can anyone help me with this?
Best regards,
Danny
I don't know if this will help or not (maybe you've already tried) but try installing the key board firmware update:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/aluminumkeyboardfirmwareupdate10.html

Key "stuck" on wired aluminum keyboard

I recently cleaned off my keyboard using a damp cloth, as I have done many times before. It worked fine for a couple hours or so after, and then out of nowhere, my "three" key stopped responding. After doing some investigating, I have found that if I unplug the keyboard, and then plug it back in, the "three" key is recognized as being held down, and will continue to type "three" until I hit another button, after which it will not respond to any key presses.
I've already cleaned underneath the key, but to no avail. The fact that the computer recognizes the key at first when I plug the keyboard in gives me some hope - I really don't want to have to shell out $50 for a new keyboard all over what seems to be a standard and widely accepted cleaning process...
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
-Ryan

Are you using the keyboard on one of the iMac's ports, not a USB 2.0 hub?
Have you tried a different USB port?
If you log out to the login screen, when you type something, like your password, does the 3 key work properly?
Also, try starting up from your Mac OS X installation disc. Find a place where you can type a 3. I guess you can run Disk Utility at the first Installer screen, from the Utilities menu. On the Erase tab or Partition, you can type in the volume name field. (Don't accidentally erase something!)

Problems connecting Logitech keyboard and iPad2

I have problems connecting a logitech keyboard to my iPad2. I've succeed in pairing the same keyboard both with an iPad1 and my MacBook Pro, so the keyboard is OK.

I am having the same problem as well. I would like to use my new iPad AIR as my primary computer for meetings and travel. I use teamviewer to remote in to my office work station and my logitech keyboard does not work at all. Have you found any resolution to this problem?
Thanks.

G5 and the Aluminum Keyboard

First...Apple, hello? It'd be nifty keeno if you had a separate hardware heading for the aluminum keyboards...my forum search turned up a lot of posts, but all over the place, in hardware and software forums both. You have a new product here. It would be nice if we could coordinate Q&As so you don't have to keep telling us the same thing over and over and over again like you're going to have to do with me.
Second. I just bought the lovely wired aluminum keyboard to replace my dying MacAlly keyboard. Loaded and installed the 1.2 update. However, the F keys remain utterly unfunctional beyond their graphically indicated use. Cannot be turned back into function keys, and shortcuts that were set up previously do not work with them, either in Apple's own System Prefs or in Quick Keys. F13 and higher just make a nice "error" noise when pressed. Nowhere do I see any means of programming them. Um. Help?

BDAqua wrote:
Am I correct in thinking it is safer to stick to Apple keyboards for the G5?
Not really, in fact I consider the latest Apple KBs the least desirable ones.
Oh, dear. I wish I were surprised by that comment. In what way(s) do you feel the keyboards have declined?
I have a brand new aluminum keyboard connected to the Mini… any risk in test-connecting it to the G5 to see if it is agreeable?
As you know about the Function key problem,,, no worry.
If there's no harm in going third-party, what brands/devices do you think are solid for my purposes?
No, no harm.
OK. It seems to me back in the day, I read a lot of stories about bad commands or data from malfunctioning keyboards causing Macs to seriously freak out. So that's why I'm uneasy about this.
Thanks again for your advice. Not many left out there able or willing to guide the likes of me including Apple store personnel. Most of them in my recent experience are so young and so blasé that they seem to have barely a clue what you're talking about when you mention using a Power Mac G5—or how amazing it is that the thing still gets out of bed in the morning, so to speak. The company has an extraordinary history, but the staff I've talked to lately haven't been schooled in it much.

IPhone + New Aluminum Keyboard + MBP = No Sleep?

I just got the new wired aluminum keyboard two day ago, hooked it up to my MBP through my ACD's USB hub. Somehow the computer just keeps waking up from sleep after a while.
I did an experiment yesterday. Put the computer to sleep mode for entire day and check on it every couple hours. The computer does stay in sleep mode. However, I noticed whenever I have my iPhone nearby, the computer will wake up after a while. Anybody experienced same problem? I did also disabled the bluetooth and wake-for-ethernet.

i hooked my old keyboard back on this morning, observed it for about 40min with my iphone sitting next to it and it stays in sleep mode. I'm gonna let it sleep again tonight using my old keyboard, if no problem then I might have got a defected new aluminum keyboard.

IOGear KVM + Apple aluminum keyboard + Bootcamp + Win7 - SOLVED

I've read many posts from people who had the same problem I encountered: the Apple aluminum keyboard does not work with the IOGear KVM on a Mac under bootcamp. Everything works perfectly on all other PCs, and everything works perfectly on the mac with bootcamp/win7 using any keyboard other than the apple aluminum keyboard.
The symptoms are that the mac/bootcamp/win7/ combination simply does not seem to recognize the apple aluminum keyboard: the caps lock light does not work and typing seems to do nothing -- although the keyboard still works to toggle the KVM between systems. With some hardware combinations, the keyboard may be temporarlily recognized after a cold start, but the problem always returns with switching between systems. I first noticed this behavior with Win7 and the bootcamp upgrades (in my case, 3.2). In my case the problem occurs with a wired aluminum keyboard, but I think a wireless keyboard would exactly the same.
I have found what I believe is the root cause and the solution.
=========
The cause
=========
The cause is a failure to properly detect the type of machine attached to a KVM port: by default, the KVM auto-detects which kind of machine is attached to each port and auto-switches that port to PC mode, Sun mode, or Mac mode. Usually this works fine, but something in the latest OSX/bootcamp/win7 drivers causes the Mac to appear to the KVM as a PC, so the KVM attempts to present the apple keyboard as if it were a PC keyboard.
I'm guessing that this whole issue might be associated with the new ability for bootcamp to let you switch the behavior of the top row of function keys between apple behavior and PC behavior -- which obviously introduces an emulation layer -- but I could be wrong. If there is anybody who has this same problem without bootcamp installed then it could be a more generic driver issue. Fortunately that doesn't matter, because the solution is the same in either case.
============
The Solution
============
All these IOGear autoswitching KVMs share the same logic, so this method should work for all. The manual for one of the simpler models of IOGear KVM is available at www.iogear.com/support/manual/GCS634U.pdf
The first thing to know is that the manual is incorrect in its description of how to use the numeric keypad to enter hot-key-mode (HKM): the manual says to hold down the "clear" key for 2 seconds, then add the "-" key for one second, then release the minus key and the clear key in quick succession. Unfortunately, this technique rarely works: one second is much too long to hold down the minus key. Instead, hold down the "clear" key for a few seconds, then just tap the "minus" key as quickly as you can, and then release the "clear key." You will see the LED flash on the capslock key, and you are now in HKM mode and can change settings on the KVM. To fix your problem you simply need to execute (HKM) (F2) on the proper port as described below.
First switch your KVM so it shows the screen of the Mac where you are having keyboard recognition problems: the correct port will now be "active" on the KVM. Put the KVM into hotkey mode and press F2 -- this will override the default autodetect setting for this port, and will set it directly to Macintosh mode. Your keyboard will immediately be recogized (and the capslock light will work!). The KVM will remember this until you change it or reset it to its factory configuration.
If you need to troubleshoot you can use another hotkey combination to print out the current settings of the KVM: open a text editor and position the cursor inside it for typing, then execute (HKM)(F4) -- the KVM will "type" its current settings. Here are mine on a 2-port KVM immediately after setting my Mac Mini port
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
hotkey:
(num lock)+(-) and (ctrl),(ctrl)
os setting:
port1 pc
port2 mac
kb:
port1 english
port2 english
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
It took me two whole days to research and test and resolve this problem, and I've read many other posts from people who couldn't find a solution & went out and bought new keyboards or different types of KVMs. I hope this posting can help somebody else avoid that difficulty.
Good luck!
-- Craig

I've read many posts from people who had the same problem I encountered: t
Perhaps then you should respond to those posts instead of posting a one-off solution here that they may not see...

Aluminum keyboard firmware updater caused my Mac not to boot.

After installing the recent (4/8/08) keyboard firmware update, my iMac G5 refused to boot past the grey apple screen, too. Got the spinning paddle, but multiple hard shutdowns and restarts failed to get it past that point.
I ended up booting the Leopard Install DVD and tried to reboot into my backup, a Superduper clone of the drive from the previous night. Wouldn't do it -- got the same result.
Used Disk Utility (on the Leopard DVD) to repair the disk/permissions. The only significant repair was this:
permissions differ on "private/var/log/secure.log," should be -rw-------, they are -rw-r-----.
Now, I don't know what that means, but maybe it's relevant.
I rebooted -- and still was unable to get past the grey screen. I tried repairing permissions a second time (and nothing unusual came up) and it still failed to fix the startup problem. I also used the repair disk function (between permissions repairs) and that had no effect, either.
Ultimately, I was forced to do an archive and install of Leopard, which then allowed me to boot successfully.
Really disappointing -- this is the kind of thing I expect Windows users to have to deal with, not us.

I have MacMini with Wired Aluminum Keyboard. I have all the current Firmware and Software updates. The computer will not startup with the install disc using the "C" key nor will it start up with my second attached hard drive using the "Option" key. Now if I use my old Black Apple Keyboard both of these functions work beautifully.
The real problem is the lack of knowledge about this on the part of Applecare and the Geniuses at the Apple Store. They don't even know about these discussions on the Apple Site nor any other internet site that is discussing or has discussed this issue.
I wasted 2 hours with Applecare. They had me do the usual things such as resetting the Pram, disconnecting all cables and resetting the startup manager. You name it they just follow the book and waste your time and theirs.
Their final conclusion was that my keyboard was defective so they made an appointment for me to bring it into the Apple Store. The Genius in the Apple Store hooks my keyboard up to another computer. I don't remember which model it was but I know it was not a Mac Mini. Anyhow he comes back and tells me my keyboard is fine. He says the RAM in my Mini has gone bad. So I replace the RAM. Still have the same problem.
Well unless someone in this discussion group can tell me what the REAL problem is, I will keep my old Black Keyboard close by.

Remap volume and eject keys on aluminum keyboard?

Is there a way to remap the volume, mute and eject keys on the Apple
(wired) aluminum keyboard?
I'd rather have them above the keypad if that's possible - like they
were on previous Apple keyboards.

Something vaguely relevant from MacFixit:
"Friday, March 03 2006 @ 02:46 PM PST
Mac OS X 10.4.5 Special Report: Keyboard/Mouse issues
Some users are reporting issues with specific input devices -- generally third-party keyboards -- after the update to Mac OS X 10.4.5.
One reader writes:
"After updating my iMac Core Duo to 10.4.5, the scroll function of the blue, middle button on my IBM SpaceSaver USB keyboard (with integrated trackpoint pointing device) no longer works. I had been using USB OverDrive 10.4.4 to gain this feature."
Re-installing combo updater The versatile workaround of re-installing the Mac OS X combo updater (PowerPC, (Intel) works to resolve a number of odd keyboard and mouse issues occurring after the update, including inversion of mouse buttons. "
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosxupdate1045combo.html

Aluminum keyboard not being recognized during start-up on 2006 Mac Mini

I have a 2006 model 1.83ghz Core Duo Mac Mini.
I purchased an Apple Aluminum keyboard to use with the Mini.
The keyboard works fine, in general.
However, upon rebooting, the keyboard is not recognized for initiating commands.
For example, holding the Option key down does not bring up the Startup manager screen,
holding down the C key will not allow booting from an Apple Leopard DVD,
holding down Command S will not initiate single user mode.
The keyboard firmware update has been installed.
I have tried different Aluminum keyboards on the computer, with the same result.
The aluminum keyboard works at startup on a 2007 Intel iMac.
I also have a 2007 model 2.0ghz Mac Mini,
it does not have any problems recognizing an Aluminum keyboard at startup.
I have had the logic board replaced under Apple Care, this did not help.
Apple products simply should just work together.
Daryl Woods

This is ridiculous and unacceptable. I have the same issue with this $%*& keyboard and my iMac CD (January 2006). A Mac that is less than 3 years old should not be made less functional by a basic peripheral like a keyboard. If Apple can't or won't address this issue they should at least make the previous generation keyboard - that functioned fine - available.
I had to replace my original keyboard and am now stuck with a less than functional, newer one... pretty unbelievable.

TS3048 My early 2009 Mac Pro does not connect via bluetooth to my sound bar or bluetooth mini speakers. Both my wireless keyboard and mouse have no problems connecting. What do I need to do to connect to external bluetooth devices?

My early 2009 Mac Pro does not connect via bluetooth to my sound bar or bluetooth mini speakers. Both my wireless keyboard and mouse have no problems connecting. What do I need to do to connect to external bluetooth devices?

I would always have a wired keyboard and mouse on hand (need not be expensive ... any cheap wired devices will work). "Emergency recovery" procedures can activate features in random order, so the opportunity to select a recovery partition may pass before the wireless devices are recognized.
That will let you select the "turn on Bluetooth" icon.

Problem connecting wired aluminum keyboard

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