Alcohol in the keyboard!

Z

ziomatrixacs

Registered
Well, I got a phone call from my friend, and a bunch of cryptic emails from her. This is the same friend who tried to mix apple and oranges, litterally by putting her 2 month old macbook in a bag with orange juice, which now resides in her CD drive. She was cleaning her computer with rubbing alcohol and some how she managed to get a small amount in the keyboard.

Now the following keys no longer work 7 u j and m. The left arrow gives a " and the track pad mouse constantly drifts left. Clicks are weird, and there is a sound effect that goes pop. Its not a bad, static pop, its an intentional notification pop but I dont know what it is for, most likely saying hey, you cant click there.

Sooo apple care expires in january, could/should she get apple care and have them fix it, or should she shun our $180 for a new upper case? Is there a chance I could fix it? If I could figure out how to disable the track pad, she could use an external mouse/keyboard for now as a temporary fix. Its a PITA to use the track pad to get to preferences > mouse to click a box, the track pad acts wild! I do know that the local apple store doesnt fix the computer, they have another place called CIT fix it. And the people at CIT..well, they are (insert bad word here)holes. They are the sterotypical computer shop that charge you for the tinyest things. "we can polish your screen for $50 extra!" type.

Any help would be appreciated..
 
The one and only keyboard I soaked (Pismo) had a soft, pliable rubbery template under the keys (I called it a membrane for lack of a better word). It became mis-shapen after I sprayed it and it was ruined. Very likely your alcohol caused the same thing.
 
Makes sense.. the keys still arnt working. Looks like she gets to buy her self a new keyboard.. I tried an external keyboard and it works just fine. Its just a PITA finding a usb mouse for under $10 at a local store now.
 
Don't know what's involved in changing out a keyboard in the newer MB's & MBP's, as the older iBooks & PB's had an easily removable keyboard. New ones are "integral".

See http://www.ifixit.com/ for further info.
 
The mac books have the keyboard under the top cover. The ibooks have them ontop. I took the cover off an the keyboard, trackpad and entier top panel is a solid chunck. No way to get to the membrane, apple has plastic rivits holding metal panel on. Kinda chinsy if you ask me. Its a good $180 part ...
 
Hmm, thats the white one.. she has a 2.2ghz black mac book.

Last night we backed up her data, and watched youtube, the fan kicked on after the computer got hot and 5 minutes later the keyboard works just fine again except the left arrow key still gives her a ' instead.. Maybe the heat caused any alcohol trapped under the keyboard to evaporate or something.. who knows!
 
You can disable the trackpad:

Apple -> System pref's -> Mouse & Keyboard ->Trackpad -> Ignore trackpad when mouse is present

:D

Good Luck.
 
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