I have a 4 1/2 year old MacBookPro that though still in very good condition, has suffered a slight setback for one reason or another. somehow, I don’t know how but I wasn’t around when it happened, some liquid (looked like water) got onto the keyboard, and obviously its not been quite right since.

Now I let it dry in the airing cupboard for about 5 days after that happened, then tried booting it. Success, it booted! Woohoo. Except one (or many) of the keys were constantly being pressed (or so the computer thought)… I tried a few things, but quickly gave up.

Fast forward a couple of months, I’ve given it another go. Anyhow, I’ve stopped whatever keys it was from seeming like they were constantly being pressed (just repeatedly pressed every key HARD several times when the computer was switched off) and it seems to function ok, except most of the keys don’t seem to work at all now. 😥

So I plugged the keyboard in from my G5 PowerMac, and it seems to work fine. Whopee, I can actually use it of sorts now… But obviously I want to get it fixed properly.

What do I need to do? Is it new keyboard time? Or do you think I can fix it without a new keyboard, as I had a quote today from local Mac specialist of £125 for the parts and about £60 for the labour!!! Which when you consider that it needs a new battery too (about £100) and even fully functioning it’s worth only about £350 on ebay I reckon, it don’t seem worth it! I’m probably going to buy a Mac Mini anyway soon, but need to try and fix this so I at least get some decent dollar back for it…

Or anybody want to give me £300 for an otherwise perfect MacBookPro (15.4″, 2.16GHz C2D, upgraded 320GB 7200rpm WD Black HD, 3Gig Corsair RAM) with a duff battery, and a keyboard that needs a fix?

So it needs £285 of parts and labour and you want someone to buy for £300. Yet you say fully functioning ones go for £350? 😕

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What’s your problem Bruneep? £585, plus the hassle of fixing it when it’s only worth £300, is a bargain.

Anyway. I’m off to buy London Bridge from a nice gentleman I met earlier.

I’d rather someone helped me to fix it bruneep… Or at least offered me some advice on how to do it myself, if it doesn’t actually need a new keyboard.

But “for spares or repairs” they still fetch about £280-300 on ebay. Obviously there’s people out there that know what they’re doing when it comes to fixing them better than I do!

Bloody laptops, I’m fine with a desktop, have taken my own and various other G5 PowerMacs to pieces, and put them back together again better than new… Laptops are just so damned fiddly though!

To be fair, should have put a smiley on my last paragraph in my original post, it was a bit of a throwaway comment… 😳

comprehensive guide here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUonF9OSvpA

google brings up keyboards – new for about £35

BUT – unless you are confident or have taken these apart before , I would try and find somebody who has, they can be damaged and parting the clips
at the front of the case does have a knack .

certainly fix it

+1 fix it

Its not a massively difficult job, had to remove the keyboard when I upgraded the hard drive on a previous macbook. The only stumbling block is unclipping everything, I had a tool that was provided with an iphone replacement screen, kind of like a really really thin tyre lever. Lets you slide between the two surfaces and unclip.

Getting back together used the tool again rather than just brute force and was fine.

And don’t forget to earth yourself to the chassis !!!!

Option b is to use it instead of a mac mini ??? MacBooks will function while closed so offers all the benefits of a mini … without the outlay (or am I missing something ?)

finishthat, many thanks for the link to that video. Had searched Youtube but not really found anything of any help until now. Will give it a go soon…

Option b is to use it instead of a mac mini ??? MacBooks will function while closed so offers all the benefits of a mini … without the outlay (or am I missing something ?)

There is that, but to be honest we’re at the point where this is old hardware, probably not far from the end of it’s useful service life. I’d rather get it working as best as possible again, sell it, sell my G5 PowerMac too, then just buy a new Mac Mini with the proceeds. I don’t need a laptop any more, and I want to reduce clutter, plus I already have a nice 23″ Samsung screen so a Mac mini would make sense. Though I suppose if I can’t fix it, I could just use the MacBookPro as a desktop for a while…

Glue it to the back of the samsung screen and call it the poor mans Imac !!!

mightymarmite, love it! I now know what to do if I can’t fix it…

Leave it broken and call it a Windoze Imac …

You may have to break a few more bits first though …