HEY LOOKY HERE!! IT'S AN ACTUAL HUMAN-GENERATED POST FOR A CHANGE!!!!!!!! Shocking, ain't it? To be honest, between work and my other projects (Otaku no Podcast being chief among those) I just haven't had the time. But, with NaNoWriMo in full swing and all of my friends (and their dogs too) participating in it, I figured that the least I could do would be to kick out a measly blog post or two.

Anyway "R" is for Recalcitrant... which describes my 13" MacBook Pro's attitude towards me this evening (well, morning now). (and no, this post's title is not the title of a geek-themed Sue Graftonesque novel I'm planning to write for NaNoWriMo...)

So this evening I discovered that the "R" key on my relatively brand new (purchased first week of September of this year) 13" MacBook Pro was sticky. Not horribly so - it still registered keypresses reliably. Only slightly sticky. But REALLY, REALLY annoying. Shortly thereafter I discovered that the "4" key was in a similarly annoying condition.

Now I'm pretty sure that the machine didn't arrive in my hands in that condition. (Though I can't be 100% certain of course.) Which means that somewhere down the line I probably did something to it. I suspect certain sticky soda-like beverages which I am particularly fond of were involved. I don't recall spilling anything on the beloved machine (and no, I haven't been in any drunken stupors recently, so alcohol-induced amnesia is not a factor). So I suspect that a small droplet of said soda-like beverage managed to find its way to my keyboard, and fell somewhere around the "R" and "4" keys (which, interestingly enough, are located right next to each other on the keyboard).

Obviously no warranty on earth would cover this. (Besides, the nearest Apple Store is 40 minutes away by car, and I don't drive, and Pam couldn't take me anyway, seeing as how she'll be headed in the complete opposite direction tomorrow, and yes there is an Apple Store where she'll be headed, but they don't have any Genius Bar appointments till next week.) And I need my machine in functioning condition. What to do, what to do???

Well, after much hemming and hawing, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, I decided, what the hell, you only live twice, and took matters into my own hands and proceeded to pop the "R" and "4" keys off the keyboard. I'm pretty good with mechanical things (or so I thought anyway), besides, how hard could it be?

As it turned out, REALLY FRACKING HARD.

Naturally, getting the keys off wasn't that difficult. (Entropy being the natural state of the universe and all that.) Although it was a bit nerve wracking - you have to basically shove some sort of prying tool down underneath the key and basically wiggle it around until you unfasten this little plastic thing that fits into a hole in the metal part of the computer. (At least I have the Apple Support Engineer Certified Plastic Prying and Poking Tool of Doom(tm), unlike the guy in the Youtube video I found, who was using... A SCREWDRIVER. *shudder*) A few disconcerting "snap" sounds later (did I mention that all of these plastic parts are extremely small and most likely extremely fragile?), and the key popped off smartly. I didn't see anything particularly gunky or sticky in there, but I gave all parts of the mechanism a good cleaning with rubbing alcohol anyway, giving it plenty of time to air-dry before attempting to put the thing back together.

Which, naturally, didn't quite go as planned. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the bits to fit back together. Despite all of my careful maneuvering of parts, it just wouldn't come back together. Once I came awfully close - the key actually snapped back, but at a really crazy angle, the surface of the key leaning way to the left and one half of the key completely unfastened in the socket.

Finally, after much sweating, grunting, cursing, swearing, prayer (at this point I was willing to try anything), and finally Googling, I found this page at Apple's support site. It described the keyboard of the PowerBook G4, but from their description of the mechanism and the pictures they provided, it looked to me as though it were the same (or very similar) mechanism to my MacBook Pro's keyboard. So I followed their directions. After even more grunting and swearing (I'm sure my neighbors really loved me by now), I finally got both keys seated properly.

All it took was four hours, about a gallon of sweat, and probably ten years off my life due to stress and vitriol. Did I mention the four hours part? Valuable time from my busy schedule, mind you - this is usually my "relax in bed and watch some anime before going to sleep" time. DAMN YOU YOU FOUL KEYBOARD DEMON FROM HELL!!! *shakes fist in air*

At least it's all put back together now, and operates in a decidedly NON-annoying manner, with no hint of a sticky key in sight.

(And before you PC using weenies utter a single word, it is a KEYBOARD, a MECHANISM. Has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the OS or software I run. The same thing could just as easily have happened with a Compaq or Lenovo or Dell or whatever laptop. In fact, if that were the case, the bloody thing probably would have broken off entirely. :P

Tags: apple, hardware, keyboard, macbook pro, troubleshooting
Current Location: home
Current Mood: irritated