Stiff Keys on my keyboard

Here in the past couple of days some keys on my keyboard have become stiff and hard to press down, compared to the rather easy use prior to this. My space bar, all my letters from "m" to the shift left are stiff, along with the space bar on over to the "fn" key. Anyone know why this might be happening?
Thanks for the help.
Also I'm using Snow Leopard, but I don't see why that would possibly make the keys stiff.

Hi, Celtic,
welcome to the forum
there might be different reasons. the most common one would be a drink containing sugar spilled over the keybord, so that the keys are getting sticky. i guess that is not what happened to your MB.
if you mean that the electrical contact is difficult to get, then it would be an electronic problem, most likely at the connection of the keyboard to its read-out.
if you mean that the keys are mechanically harder than before, then it could indicate a misalignment between KB and chassis of your MB.
in both cases i would check with Apple - especially if it is still under warranty. in any case, if you don't have experience in these matters, don't try to open it yourself!
Hope this helps,
thomas

Similar Messages

Stock Keyboard Stiff Keys--Anyone Know an Outstanding After Market Keyboard

I have a stock mac keyboard (non-wireless) that came with my iMac G5. I purchased the ensemble new in Jun 2005. I noticed that all the keys were more stiff than on other non-Mac keyboards. Also I have always noticed that stock Mac keyboards have stiff keys (not just this one) compared to non-mac keyboards. Stock mac desktop keyboard keys are stiff compared to mac laptops.
With age the keys on my keyboard seem to have gotten stiffer. I have read the other threads where people say to stiff key inquiries, "clean your keyboard."
So this past weekend I removed all of the keys. Took my electric air compressor set it to max 40 psi (read this somewhere as the max pressure for computers) and cleaned out the keyboard. I then painstakingly cleaned each key and keyboard with Windex cut with water.
Results? Jack none! Well, the stiff keys are now clean.
So, enough with this stock keyboard with stiff keys.
Anyone use an after market Mac keyboard (non-wireless). If so what do you recommend?
BTW OWC has a few candidates:
- icekey
- OS X keyboard
- Kensington Slim Type Keyboard for Mac
-iKEYSLIM
Again anyone with firsthand knowledge have a recommendation?
Cheers,
Chuck
iMac G5 2.0 GHz 20" Mac OS X (10.4.8) Mac Convert

Chuck--
Keyboards are really very personal choices, so your best bet is to try them out for yourself. I've read great things about the Matias Tactile Pro Keyboard, which they compare to the best keyboard I ever owned, the Apple Extended Keyboard. But while some people like it, others hate it. I tried it at a MicroCenter and wasn't terribly impressed, but that's just me. But it might strike you differently.
Other than that one, I haven't really found any that compare to the ones Apple ships. Like you, I think I'd like more of the feel of the laptop keyboards, but I've never seen one in a standalone keyboard.
charlie

Yoga 3 Pro - Certain Keys Missing from Keyboard. How to virtually use them?

Hi.
I have bought this for about a week and was not happy about the combination of "Home" and "End" keys since I use them a lot. In using VMWare I noticed there is no "Insert" key on the keyboard at all, thus I cannot use the Ctrl+Alt+Insert functionality in my virtual machines. Today, a random combination of keys was pressed on the keyboard and the "Scroll Lock" was enabled, and guess what: There is no scroll lock in the Yoga 3 Pro! Now I have no idea how to disable this again and non of the forums or manuals have addressed this.
(Lenovo design team has made is specifically hard for users. Not only the keyboard layout and certain keys are removed, but even I cannot find a spare chargin cable for my officec. They have changed everything - even Yoga 2 Pro charging cable is not compatible - and yet not available in the market. Not a very smart strategy )
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Welcome to the forum!
I'm sorry to hear about your problem. I had to really take a look at my own Y3P to realize there is no Insert key, I guess I got too used to the touchscreen
To get rid of the Scroll Lock you can press the combination Fn+C.
Alternatively you can also go to the Control Panel, then "Easy of Access Center" and start the On-Screen Keyboard, you can disable the Scroll lock from there too.
/L40SX/240/240X/2*340CSE/360PE/365XD/380D/380E/380XD/380Z/390/560E/560X/2*570/2*600/600E/750Cs/755C/760CD/760EL/760XD/770E/A20p/A22p
A31/i1600/G40/R50p/R61i/S30/SL510/2*T22/4*T4x/11*T6x/6*T4x0x/6*T5x0/3*W5x0/W700/3*X2x/4*X3x/3*X4x/5*X6x/3*X6xT/10*X2xx/2*X200T/4*X30x/Z60m/3*Z61x
Comunidad en Español English Community Deutsche Community Русскоязычное Сообщество

Problem with the volume keys on my keyboard.

Hey everybody,
I have a problem with the volume keys on my keyboard. This started a couple days ago and I can't seem to figure out how to fix it. When I press the volume up or down buttons, the graphic appears on the screen as it normally would, but has no effect on the volume of the sound coming out of my speakers. Therefore, the only way to change the volume of music or whatever I am listening to is to use the volume control within the program/website itself (itunes, youtube, etc.) Even changing the volume on the volume icon at the menu bar on top of the screen does nothing. If anyone has an idea of how to go about solving this issue, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

First look into the Preference > Sound > Outpur whether internal Speakers are choosen.
The only Preference to delete I can discover is com.apple.systempreferences.plist in your home Library folder. You can try to move it out to the desktop for example, not to loose all your settings. Restart and see whether the problem still persists. If you don't know how to do this here some Terminal (Applications > Utilities) commands. Enter them by copy and paste followed by <enter>
mv ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist ~/Desktop/
restart
to get it back:
mv ~/Desktop/com.apple.systempreferences.plist ~/Library/Preferences/
confirm with "y" if you are asked to replace this file.
marek

Some of the shortcut keys and directional keys on the keyboard are not working in FF 4 RC1 (i.e. Tab, Ctrl+C, arrow keys). They work fin in FF 3.6x and other applications.

Crtl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+X, Tab, and arrow keys do not work at all in FF4.0b13 and later. I am not sure about earlier versions as this is the first version I have tried.

I found this helpful article (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1381) and worked my way through the section "Some keys don't work as expected".
All the following functions/settings are disabled or turned off:
Text to speech / Speak selected text when the key is pressed
Slow Keys
Mouse Keys.
The keyboard viewer just confirms my list of keys that are not working.
Starting in safe mode makes no difference; nor does booting from the Mac OS X Install Disc and running Terminal from the Utilities menu. The same keys as before fail to work.
This seems to confirm that it's a hardware issue. Anyone have any suggestions?

Crystal report preview window freezes if I push any key on the keyboard

our system is a pretty old one, and we are still using crystal report 7 and vc6(mfc6).
It is a simple dialog based application with a button and a flex grid7.1 component on it.
when the button is clicked, a crystal report preview window will be opened and become the active window.
the problem is that, when i pushed a key on the keyboard ('a' for example) the whole application will freeze, and CPU Occupancy Rate is 100%.
but if I switch the dialog to be current active window after a preview window opened, keyboard input won't make the application freeze.
It seems that crystal report preview window don't know how to deal with the keyboard input.
BTW:
I use the methods below to open a preview window.
PEOpenEngine
PEOpenPrintJob
PEPrintReport
have anyone here met any similiar problems before?
I really need your help.
thanks in advance.
Edited by: zhengli on May 26, 2010 4:36 AM

Moved to Legacy Application Development SDKs forum.
I have nothing for you, other than; consider upgrading - after all CR 7 shipped in 1998(!). I don't know what OS you are on, but I suspect what ever OS it is, it was not even in a concept stage of thought when CR 7 shipped. E.g.; this may be an OS issue more than anything else.
BTW., print engine APIs were retired in version 9 of Crystal Reports. At this time, your best option is to upgrade to CR 2008 (12.0)and use .NET or Java. If you are using VB 6 or equivalent, you could still upgrade to CR XI r2 (11.5) and use the Report Designer Component (RDC). However, note that CR XI r2 will be out of support in June of this year. And CR XI R2 is the last version of CR to include the RDC.
Ludek
Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/SAPCRNetSup
Edited by: Ludek Uher on May 26, 2010 8:28 AM

I have a macbook (circa 2008) version mac os x10.6.8. The 'l' key on my keyboard is hard to press down and doesn't always come up on the screen.

I've never had a problem with any of the keys on my keyboard up until now. The 'l' key has become like hard and I have to press down harder and more deliberately then I normally do. Otherwise an 'l' doesn't show up on the screen. It's not a settings or technical problem. I feel like just needs to be cleaned or something like that but I don't know. It's really frustrating whenever I'm typing especially since 'l' is a pretty common letter. Please help!

You can try this but I'm not sure if it will work http://m.wikihow.com/Temporarily-Remove-a-Key-from-a-Macbook
ALso found this video on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88cn_rtLo
The keyboard, trackpad and top case are an integral unit, you'll probably have to replace the top case https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Core+2+Duo+Upper+Case+Replacement/515

How can labview update the string control (text-edit box) after we have pressed the carriage return key on the keyboard during text-editing within that box?

Dear readers,
I have been trying to work out how to get labview to detect the event when a 'string' control has been modified, where the user has finished editing the string either by 1) pressing the enter key on the keyboard, or by 2) taking the focus away from the string control again. For example.. if I use the mouse to click on the string control and then I type 1234 into the box, I would like to have a routine that does something once the user hits the Enter key of the keyboard, or when the user takes the focus away from the string control again by clicking on something else. I would like the routine to respond even when the user didn't change anything in the text box (such as when we mouse-click on the edit box to go into edit mode, and then mouse-click on something else to remove the focus with no changes to the contents in edit-box).
The purpose of my routine is to have a edit-box for a user to change for example the centre-frequency of a vector network analyser, so that the centre-frequency of the network analyser can change once the user finishes entering a new value in the text-edit box by hitting Enter key after the number is keyed in. Even if the user has clicked on the edit box, but changes their mind by mouse-clicking on something else to remove focus from the edit box, I would still like labview to detect the event when the control loses focus, so that the centre frequency can be updated anyway (to the same value that was already in the edit box).
So far, I've tried set the string control option to 'limit to single line', so that I can try to scan for a carriage return .. '\n' ... pattern in the string. Unfortunately this doesn't work because labview doesn't seem to attach the '\n' to the end of that single line.
Could someone please suggest ways to set a flag when a user hits Enter during text-edit mode of a string control, or when focus has been removed from the string control?
While I've only described my problem for controlling a single control parameter on the gpib device, I'd like to make this feature work so that I can do the same kind of thing with other control parameters as well.
Thanks so much in advance.
Kenny

Hi Kenny,
instead of using the event structure, you can directly achieve to what you want by the KeyFocus property of the string control.
- Enable Limit to single line option
- Create the property KeyFocus in read mode and connect an indicator
Each time you click on the string to modify it KeyFocus is True; when you click away or hit Enter KeyFocus is False.
You can toggle your settings when KeyFocus changes from True to False.
Alberto

How can I stop iTunes from using my multimedia keys on my keyboard?

I use the multimedia keys on my keyboard for WinAmp, which is my primary music player. When iTunes is open it hijacks every one of them. WinAmp has options to enable and disable the use of global hotkeys and multimedia keys. iTunes does not seem to. Is there really no way to get iTunes to stop taking control of my keys? I am using Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, for the record.

Yep. Don't manually manage.

Occasionally when filling in forms in Safari 5.1.2 certain keys on the keyboard don"t work. When I use the coma it opens up another tab.

Occasionally when filling in forms in Safari 5.1.2 certain keys on the keyboard don"t work. When I use the coma it opens up another tab. I've used other browsers to fill in the forms and they work fine so my keyboard is OK.

Please read this whole message before doing anything.
This procedure is a diagnostic test. It won’t solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of this exercise is to determine whether the problem is localized to your user account, or is system-wide. Enable guest logins and log in as Guest. For instructions, launch the System Preferences application, select “Help” from the menu bar, and enter “Set up a guest account” (without the quotes) in the search box.
While logged in as Guest, you won’t have access to any of your personal files or settings. Any application you run will behave as if you were running it for the first time. Don’t be alarmed by this; it’s normal. If you need any passwords or other personal data in order to complete the test, memorize, print, or write them down before you begin.
As Guest, launch the application(s) and test. Same problem(s)?
After testing, log out of the guest account and, in your own account, disable it if you wish. Any files you created in the guest account will be deleted automatically when you log out of it.

TS1297 My numbers / symbols 1-9 / !-( do not work on my wireless key pad. I have tried the resolution information but, still no response with those keys only. I can only type these keys with the keyboard viewer. Any suggestions?

My numbers & symbols 1-9 / !-( do not work on my wireless key pad. I have tried the resolution information but, still no response with those keys only. I can type these keys with the keyboard viewer, thankfully. Any suggestions?

Unable to type while Mouse Keys is enabled in OS X

Keys on the Keyboard not working.

A couple keys on my keyboard are not working. The Y is one of them. Every time I click Y it makes this noise but it doesn't type Y. I know the problem is not with the hardware because I replaced the keyboard with a brand new one and it still is the same. Is there any way to fix this? Thank you very much for your time.
Take care,
Andrew

Open the Speech pane of System Preferences and check what the Speech and Listening keys are; if necessary, change the setting.
(17992)

HT2638 since updating iPhoto it has ceased to open. i have tried to Hold down the Command and Option keys on the keyboard but it does not work. iPhoto still does not open

Since updating iPhoto it has ceased to open. I have tried to Hold down the Command and Option keys on the keyboard which is the suggested solution to then open a suggested solution to rebuild the library, but it does not work. iPhoto still does not open. can someone please help?
thank you

Try the following:
1 - delete the iPhoto preference file, com.apple.iPhoto.plist, that resides in your
Home/Library/ Preferences folder.
2 - delete iPhoto's cache folder(s):
Home/Library/Containers/com.apple.iPhoto
and, if there is one, the
Home/Library/Caches/com.apple.iPhoto folder
3 - reboot, launch iPhoto and try again.
NOTE: For Mavericks, 10.9, go to your Home folder and use the View ➙ Show View Options menu to bring the this window:
Happy Holidays

The u, j, m and 7 keys on the keyboard are not functioning properly on my macbook air. Please Help!

The u, j, m and 7 keys on the keyboard are not functioning properly on my macbook air. In its place are a random assortment of keys (Ex - u = "eqrw" or "IOUY"). This randomly happened when logging back in after sleep mode. No liquid damage at all. Please help!

OK, I fixed the problem by doing a SMC (System Management Controller) reset as follows:
1. Powered off my MacBook and removed everything connected except for the power chord.
2. When powered off, I held "Shift" + "ctrl" + "Option" + "Power button" for 5 seconds or so until the little light on the front started to blink rapidly.
3. Powered up my Mac, which took a little longer than usual to start and tested the "missing" keys which now works perfectly again.
Just added another couple of years usage with my aging mac :-)

Problems with "v", "]", and command keys on the keyboard

Hi,
On my MacBook, pressing either the "v" key or the command key to the left of the space bar, without pressing the other one as in a keyboard shortcut, pastes what is currently on my clipboard. Pressing only the command key to the right of the space bar, and not the "]" key in combination, moves me forward in my web browser. When I do press the "]" key, nothing happens (I had to copy and paste the "]" and the "v" for this post). Obviously this is somewhat annoying as typing anything with these two symbols becomes a chore. I am still able to use other keyboard shortcuts, however, but in doing so the command key either pastes from the clipboard or, if I'm using a web browser, moves me to the next page in my history before completing the shortcut. How can I fix this? Thanks.

Try resetting your SMC.
Resetting the System Management Controller >>
Try resetting PRAM:
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound (bong) for four times.
6. Release the keys.
If neither help, you could have a hardware issue with the keyboard.
Dave M.
MacOSG Founder/Ambassador  An Apple User Group  iTunes: MacOSG Podcast
Creator of 'Mac611 - Mobile Mac Support' (designed exclusively for an iPhone/iPod touch)

Stiff Keys on my keyboard

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for