Tuesday started innocently enough. I got to work, felt groggy, and went over to grab a latte at the local coffee shop. My first sip was cautious, but not enough to avoid the burning. I jerked back a little bit and spilled a drop of latte the size of maybe a quarter on the arrow keys of my Macbook. That’s when the trouble started.
First it was left shift + ‘i’ that wouldn’t work. Then it was the arrow keys. Finally, the whole damn keyboard just stopped working. Now I’d doused the laptop in much worse in the time I’ve had it so I didn’t think much of this relatively small spill. Given how fast things progressed, I was concerned.
The next few hours I spent researching keyboard replacement. Let’s just say there’s a reason Apple doesn’t just send you a replacement keyboard and let you fix yourself. Take the battery out, unscrew the memory cover plate, remove the bottom cover, remove the non-conductive black tape, remove a dozen screws, unclip ribbon cable… you get the idea.
So it was either use an external keyboard, send the thing into Apple for a few hundred dollars and a couple of weeks of time, or try to fix a replacement and fix it myself. The external keyboard worked fine in the office, but I wasn’t going to be lugging around a keyboard with me for work away from the office. Instead, I started searching for a replacement keyboard online. They were at least $70. At that point, I decided an Apple Wireless Keyboard was in order as it would cost just as much and have no installation. It’s also small and easily tossed in my laptop bag.
Consequently a few hours after I got the new keyboard, the Macbook keyboard started working again. It’s not back 100% though because random arrow keys get triggered from time to time. It also won’t sleep reliably as it keeps getting input from the keyboard. Things seemed to have gotten better since yesterday, but I’ll still be taking this external keyboard around with me for at least awhile.
