Sticky shift key on 13" MB

Hello,
I'm experiencing a sort of sticky shift key. Usually it just delays a second or so before poping back up after being pressed. It sort of comes and goes - some days not even noticeable.
I never spilled anything on it either.
Can these keys be pried out with a small screw driver and put back on without much risk of damaging it?
I've looked at the key carefully and it just seems like there's not enough clearance between the top key next to the aluminum top - the other shift key appears to have more clearance. I think if I can remove the key I can maybe sand off a little bit off the key edge to give it a little more clearance.
Thanks,

Hi i thought i could reboot from my recovery dvd to rectify this fault, unfortunately after rebooting windows i cannot get past the welcome to microsoft windows screen i cannot click on the next button, it highlight's when the pointer is over it and right click work's but left click dosn't.
Any ideas appreciated.

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Alt and Shift keys act like "sticky" keys - don't work if held down

My 8830 Alt and Shift keys mysteriously stopped working normally, and now operate exactly how a one-thumbed person would love.
It seems I've activated some rare acessibility feature that I can't turn off. (Tried pulling battery.)
If I hold down the Alt or Shift keys and press another key (e.g. the "W") nothing happens - no character is typed. BUT if I press the Alt key and release it, the up/down arrow icon appears in the upper right of the screen. Then if I next push the W key I get a "1" and the icon disappears. The next keypress of any key gives its regular (letter) function.
The same behavior applies to the right and left shift keys too, except the CAPS icon appears in the upper right.
How do I turn this "feature" off?
Thanks!

I had the same problem in my BB 8100, i read this below, and it works to me too. The trackball seems to stay pressed or bad working so it makes the shift and alt not working. After this muy Alt and shift button returns to work correctly.
sorry, I´m not so good english writer.
Re: Alt Key mysteriously changed function
Options
11-04-2008 09:08 AM
I popped off the ring around the track-ball with a screw driver and cleaned the sensors. I also depressed the sensor on the circuitboard of the device with a metal tipped pen and things started working fine again. Rebooting and cleaning the track-ball had not helped until I manually pressed the circuitboard at which point everything returned to normal including track-ball clicking and having to press the Alt-key once every time I needed to use a number.
hope that helps.
- The Alaskan

The pressing the Shift key to make a capital letter kicks me out of gmail or reloads the current web page

I'm suddenly getting some strange behavior on my Windows 7 PC. (I can hear all you Linux users formulating witty retorts...don't do it! :-). When I'm composing an email in Gmail and press the Shift key to get caps, it kicks me out of the composition page. And nothing is saved in drafts either. Internet Explorer doesn't have this issue. The Shift key works normally. Also, If I try to paste using Ctrl+V it make the webpage text shrink. I was trying to log this issue on the computer with the problem but I couldn't login because of the caps and the paste issue.
I just discovered another quirk: If I press the Ctrl key without the +V it still shrinks the text.

Hi Matt,
Thanks for the suggestion, but there's no option to uninstall a driver. It's a MS Ergonomic 4000 keyboard and it just shows up as an HID compliant device. I tried uninstalling the Microsoft Mouse & Keyboard Control Center, but that didn't help either.
I've also pressed the keys numerous times (at one point it asked me if I wanted to enable 'Sticky Keys' which I didn't). Rebooted too. Even deleted the user profile, removed the PC from the domain, rejoined it to the domain, logged in as the user, and restored a previously backed up Transfer Wizard profile. And I checked while logged on as the local Admin and got the same weirdness.

CTRL, ALT and SHIFT keys are sticking (not physically)

I am having a problem with the T-61p I have been using for 2 years now.
About once every 2 days Windows thinks that either the CTRL, the ALT or the SHIFT key is held down. I only notice this when my mouse's left click or my arrow keys starts behaving funny (like opening dialogs when clicking on icons or highlighting text on a page in MS Word) instead of moving the cursor as they should.
When this starts happening, pressing the CTRL, ALT and SHIFT buttons causes the strange behavior to stop.
None of the keys are physically stuck down. I am using an external keyboard with my laptop closed and docked. I have tried switching keyboards, and I get the same results with brand new Logitech keyboards.
What could this be? Has anyone seen this problem before?
Your help is much appreciated.

Welcome to the forum!
It sounds like you've inadvertently turned on the Sticky Keys accessibility feature. Since you didn't mention which operating system you're using, I can't tell you how to turn it off. Trying searching for Sticky Keys in Help in the Start button menu.
Hope this helps!
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Jane
2015 X1 Carbon, ThinkPad Slate, T410s, X301, X200 Tablet, T60p, HP TouchPad, iPad Air 2, iPhone 5S, IdeaTab A2107A, Yoga Tablet, Yoga 3 Pro
I am not a Lenovo Employee.
I AM one of those crazy ThinkPad zealots!
If you find a post helpful and it answers your question, please mark it as an "Accepted Solution"!

Stuck Shift Key

I've been having a problem with my MacPro, OS 10.5.8, for at least a week.
The Shift key appears to be stuck across the board, in all apps. Besides the obvious upper-casing, selections are all extensions, transforms are all constrained to uniform, the dock minimize effect is in super slo-mo.
I have checked the shift keys and they appear to be fine. Is this a software issue.

Been out of the Leopard for a year now so details are fuzzy, but check the settings in System Preferences / Universal Access. Maybe one of the Sticky Keys overstayed its stickyness.

Sticky Keyboard Keys, I clean the keys and the stickyness comes back. Help!

I made the mistake of spillinh soda on my keyboard and was left with sticky shift, command and space bar keys. Time after time I have popped the keys off and cleaned the keys and key holders with different cleaners. Once the keys are cleaned, they remain un sticky for a few days. Then, "magically" the same keys become sticky again. It's driving me crazy! Does anyone have a solution to my problem?

Stop eating/drinking while you are on the computer.
I know that answer sounds kinda mean but that is the only reason that I can think of for why they are still sticky. It is not really possible that they can not stick for a few days and then begin sticking again and it being because of the one incident.

Problems with my SHIFT key

Every time i press the shift key, a small arrow pops up and then disappears in the upper corner of my screen. When i press shift twice, it turns on caps lock.Im not sure what i did to turn on this feature, but i want to shut it off

System Preferences > Accessibility|Universal Access > Sticky Keys

Wireless Keyboard's left and right shift keys don't like some keys...

Hello everyone!
I recently bought a second hand 2009 Apple Wireless Keyboard to use with my iPad 32GB Wi-Fi.
When pressed by themselves, the keys all individually work - I've tested them all using my MacBook's Keyboard and Character Viewer. The problem is when I use either shift keys with the following keys:
123456789
qwertyuio
Now, the odd thing is, the left shift key won't wok with either of those lines but the right shift key will work with the letters but not the numbers.
Using sticky keys on my MacBook, I can get every single one of the numbers to give out their character (!@£ etc.) with the left and right shift keys. I've not got Mouse Keys turned on either (and I don't think there's an option to enable it on the iPad)
Also, the Shift keys work perfectly fine with all of the other keys on the keyboard so they aren't worn out.
Any ideas what could be making my keyboard this way..? Or should I send it back (if I can...)?
Thank you for your time!

ok so i've made a bit of progress on my own...
i've found the on-screen keyboard viewer (silly me, i was looking under "keyboard" in system preferences...) and this flashes with each key i press except the problematic left and right cursor keys.
moreover, if i click the left and right cursor keys on the on-screen keyboard, they behave as they should, moving my cursor left and right.
this is starting to look like a hardware fault but i'd love to be able to test outside of the OSX GUI to be really sure. is there any way i can do that. not sure i want to get the screwdriver out just yet...

G505s - Shift key problem

i have a lenovo g505s and neither of my shift keys are working, out of the box. all other keys appear to be working just fine. i have contacted lenovo tech support and they restored the factory settings, but that did not fix the problem. i called geek squad and they messed with the filter keys and sticky keys. we were only able to type one letter [a fluke, it never happened again] right after turning on the filter keys. after that, no matter what we did, the shift key still does not work. any suggestions/
Moderator note: moved post from General board. Edited subject to match content. Was: T61 - Shift key problem

Hi Lkinkley,
Welcome to Lenovo Community Forums!
I’m sorry to hear that the Shift Key is not working as expected in your G505s Laptop, as the issue persists. The only available option is to call Technical Support for Assistance to get the details of nearest Authorized Service Center to get the issue analyzed.
Click here to open a link where you can select the country and get the exact contact support number. I’m sure they will be a great help.
Do post us back for further queries.
Best Regards
Shiva Kumar
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When I type on my macbook air I get the symbols I would get if I were holding down the option and shift keys.

I've looked at sticky keys and other stuff like this they don't seem to be the problem. I guess it is possible that both the option and shift keys are stuck at the same time, but they don't seem to be stuck at all.
I tried a restart and that didn't help and I hit the shift key 5 times....
Help

Have you been able to fix this problem? I am having the same issue with my laptop and it seems like each letter in my keyboard performs a shortcut or function rather than typing letters

Odd glitch causing shift key to be randomly activated

Hi... I seem to be having some sort of glitch with my keyboard. On various programs (IM, Word, various Internet browsers) I will have times where my letters are being randomly capitalized (aNd wiLl apPeaR lIke ThIs). This is a great annoyance, and earlier an instance such as this prevented me from starting up my computer because I could not enter my password correctly with the randomly capitalized characters. It appears that when this happens, it is as if my shift key is randomly being activated (numbers will appear as symbols, such as @ instead of 2, and Internet pages will open in new windows when I do not want them to). Hopefully someone can help me out here- Thanks!

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
It's hard to say what the cause is here, but I'm wondering if the unwanted shift is associated with one or both shift keys. You can go to Systems Preferences>International>Input Menu and check the box that says "Keyboard Viewer". This will install a little flag in the menu bar. You can click on it and get the keyboard viewer, which will highlight the keys as you type. It should also highlight the random shift that occurs when you don't strike a key. If this turns out to be confined to just one shift key, it might be that something has gotten into it or under the keycap that is making it malfunction. You can pull the keyboard out and look at the shift keys from the edges. You can look for foreign objects and also check the action of both to see if they are equally crisp or if one seems to be sticky. Has anything ever been spilled on the keyboard? If so, that could be related to this problem. If so, it's possible that cleaning that shift key will help:
http://mij.oltrelinux.com/ibook/cleaning_keyboard/
This looks like lot of trouble, but it might be worth trying for one or two keys.
At the moment, I am assuming some sort of physical glitch that has a physical fix. But I don't know if it could possibly be a software glitch. But it's probably worth trying to find something simple first.
Good luck!

Lenovo C1000 Intermittant shift key

I have the above laptop which has developed a very strange fault. Basically, up until last week the laptop was working fine, then all of a sudden 'Sticky Keys' came into life, which as I understand, is a facility for disabled people to enable them to use keyboards more easily. Effectively 'sticky keys' will immitate the user holding down the shift key. This obviously is a problem for standard users, as it means you get capital letters when typing when you dont want them.. Anyway, long story short, I've disabled 'sticky keys' completely, but it still seems to be acting as though sticky keys is on, can someone help? As far as I can tell there's no physical problem with the keyboard, it seems to me to be software related, there's also no conflicts in the device driver list.

Are you sure that you disabled the Sticky Keys? Just to be certain, make sure these steps are done:
1. Press SHIFT 5 times consecutively. The StickyKeys box will pop up.
2. Click Settings. Accessibility Options pops up.
3. On the "Keyboard" tab click the "Settings" button in the "StickyKeys" section.
4. Uncheck the items in this window and click OK.
5. Click Apply and OK on Accessibility Options.
If you still problems with the StickyKeys feature after disabling them, you can try the following:
1. Use System Restore to rollback your settings to a date prior to time you started experiencing the problem
(Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore)
2.You can also try to go into the BIOS (F1) and load the default settings (F9) and then saving and exit (F10).
If that doesn't resolve the issue, your problem might be with the keyboard itself.. The **bleep** key could possibly be jammed and that would mean another keyboard is needed.
Hope this helps,
Mark
Do NOT PM me with technical issues. Post in the forum for assistance. Thanks

My left shift key on Macbook Pro Retina (15") is behaving like the F11 key (show/hide open windows). The key behaves the same for the laptop keyboard and for an external Apple keyboard? This just started in last week after 6 months of use

My left shift key on Macbook Pro Retina (15") is behaving like the F11 key (show/hide open windows).
The left shift key behaves the same on the laptop keyboard and on an external Apple keyboard.
This just started in last week after 6 months of use. The right shift key and other keys on the keyboard all appear to work correctly.
Suggestions greatly appreciated.

I have a solution to this issue now after a discussion with Apple Support. Some where in the last few weeks, there was a change in the key that would do a Show Desktop under the Mission Control settings in the System Preferences. Even though the key sequence that was shown for the Show Desktop setting did not include the Left SHift key, by changing this first to having no key sequence and applying that and then changing it back to the F11 key, the Left SHift key issue that I was having has cleared up.
A second issue that was uncovered was that the SSD had some issues (uncovered when I ran Disk Utility using the Repair Disk key). I had to restart and use the Disk Utility through the Command R sequence to get to the stand alone Disk Utility. The SSD appears to be running better as a result as well.
Hope that this is of use to someone else in the future.

How do I fix my left shift key? Any open windows leave and make the desktop visible.

How do I fix my left shift key? Any open windows leave and make the desktop visible. I have tired to go into system preferences and reset all of the keyboard settings to default but the issue hasn't gone away.

You are not running as administrator, I think, which may be required and the only way to properly work and register. Also check for compatibility mode settings, UAC and DEP, all of which may require to be adjusted for a legacy app like PS CS2 to run properly. Also turn off Aero and switch to a conventional visual theme. The brush issue may be related to that or is a more generic problem with your graphics card and mouse config, but since you didn't provide any info on that, it will be hard for anyone to advise.
Mylenium

HT1495 I recently "held down the shift key" and created (and named) a new library, it's completely lost all my music on my iTunes ac! I still have it on my iPad, can I transfer all my iPad music from my iPad to a new iTunes ac (as I had to uninstall and i

Ive had an iPad for a year or so, it's got tons of music on it. I recently got myself an iPhone. I read on here about how to set up a completely separate library using my same account (as my iphone couldn't possibly hold the same amount as my pad I thought it made sense!). Trouble is....as I set up a new library it asked me to name it, which I did. The trouble is now, every time I log in to iTunes it logs into the new library which is completely blank. It has of course not effected my music on my pad (phew!), I cannot find my original iTunes a/c anywhere on my pc. In desperation I tried to uninstall the iTunes off my pc, then reinstall, and log into my original a/c hoping all would be revealed thanks to the iCloud, but no.....it's blank! Is there anyway of copying (safely) all of my music and films FROM my iPad ONTO my new blank iTunes account?? Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

The trouble is now, every time I log in to iTunes it logs into the new library which is completely blank. It has of course not effected my music on my pad (phew!), I cannot find my original iTunes a/c anywhere on my pc.
Okay, try launching iTunes while holding down the shift key (again) but this time, click "Choose library". Browse to the location of the old library file. The default locations of the library file are inside the iTunes folder described in the following table:
Operating System
Default location of iTunes Folder
Mac OS X
/Users/[your username]/Music
Microsoft Windows XP
\Documents and Settings\[your username]\My Documents\My Music\
Microsoft Windows Vista
\Users\[your username]\Music\
Microsoft Windows 7
\Users\[your username]\My Music\
Find and open the library file. Are you seeing your normal library now?

Sticky shift key on 13" MB

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