2016 Macbook Pro Issue - High Pitched Keyboard Clicking Sound

[Proto732]

Not just Colorado. I did a custom order from the website. Had it shipped to my local New Jersey store for pickup. Machine is only a few weeks old.

I installed Robocraft to test the graphics of the 460 Pro. Cranked all the game settings to the highest level. Played for an hour. Machine got hot as one would expect for this game. Started noticing they keys sounded different while playing. Clicks and pops. Thought I was going nuts until I started seeing these articles on Apple sites.

I don't get any key press repeats, or stuck keys... It's mostly just the sound of the key being pressed.
Some times I notice a key press doesn't register, but I wasn't sure if that was just me adjusting to the new, flatter keyboard style.

I do not eat food over my computer. This is not a debris in the keyboard issue. This is heat expansion causing some issues in the materials of the mechanisms within the keyboard.

The only "fix" for something mechanical like this, would likely be to run the fans more aggressively to keep the internals cooler, which will have a negative impact on battery power. I'm keeping it, but this design is looking more and more like a dud.

My average temp during a workday is 52-56 degrees centigrade.

 

[Dubadai]

The store verified the issue with the keyboard and a replacement is waiting for me tomorrow morning. Hopefully the 5th one will be the final one...

Ill post an update tomorrow morning!

 

[monstermac77]

Unrelated, is there a better way to heat up the Mac than to run Chrome with 3 tabs of YouTube 4K videos, which I've found to be very effective. On Windows there are 10000 different benchmark programs, but have yet to find a simple program which only purpose is to bench and heat the machine up...

The store verified the issue with the keyboard and a replacement is waiting for me tomorrow morning. Hopefully the 5th one will be the final one...

See my original post (the start of this thread) for a good way to heat up your computer. Best of luck with number 5!

 

[Dubadai]

See my original post (the start of this thread) for a good way to heat up your computer. Best of luck with number 5!

Used that method multiple times, but Lightroom and Photoshop seemed to push it even further hehe, especially during a longer periods!

Oddly enough after 3 hour load, most of the buttons seemed to have cleared. Either that or they were less likely to do the clicking... Weird...

I think that tomorrow when I get the 5th replacement, ill push it fully for a few hours at work before testing the keyboard to see what buttons are "faulty" this time... My gut tells me Ill have the same issues tomorrow...

 

[monstermac77]

Used that method multiple times, but Lightroom and Photoshop seemed to push it even further hehe, especially during a longer periods!

Oddly enough after 3 hour load, most of the buttons seemed to have cleared. Either that or they were less likely to do the clicking... Weird...

I think that tomorrow when I get the 5th replacement, ill push it fully for a few hours at work before testing the keyboard to see what buttons are "faulty" this time... My gut tells me Ill have the same issues tomorrow...

Ah, that makes sense. The command I posted only stresses the CPU but I'm sure Lightroom and Photoshop will stress both the CPU and GPU.

 

[Dubadai]

UPDATE:

Same issue on this one. A, Z, and CAPS on this one. Gonna see if the heat from todays Photoshop/Lightroom work etc. maybe resolves it...

This is getting really bad. There must be something really wrong with the new keyboard...

UPDATE 2:
A, Z, C, SHIFT, B, N, CAPS are malfunctioning. CAPS seems to slowly resolve the more I use it...

 

[Dubadai]

After running the computer on high load all day, the only buttons that are still clicking are the A, C, and Z buttons...

This is weird...

 

[TripleMoxy]

After running the computer on high load all day, the only buttons that are still clicking are the A, C, and Z buttons...

This is weird...

Very weird. Please let us know if the remaining keys improve or if you have any reoccurrence on the keys that had previously squeaked.

I still can believe that I'm still here, desperately hoping that I can finally buy a £3,000 machine that doesn't squeak like the Monty Python mouse-xylophone when I type.

 

[TripleMoxy]

Very weird. Please let us know if the remaining keys improve or if you have any reoccurrence on the keys that had previously squeaked.

I can't believe that I'm still here, desperately hoping that I can finally buy a £3,000 machine that doesn't squeak like the Monty Python mouse-xylophone when I type.

 

[MatveyThal]

become today 2nd

Become MBP 15 2,9/460 today. Bought it in Germany. Have the same issue on Tab, CapsLock, A and K. I saw it after first 6 hours of using, while mac was heating. Tomorrow i will send it back and will wait for new one. Hope it will be better.

Become today a replacement. Same issue with keys "7", "8" and "9". Doesn't what to do. Work on this one and wait until fix release, or send it back and wait for new replacement.

 

[Dubadai]

The thing that bothers me now is that my 3rd replacement that I had "only" had this issue on the "9"... And I could have lived with that, but this one and the one prior to this one were both really bad... So yeah, getting kind of tired of this...

 

[Dubadai]

Going in for another change now... Hope that the new one at least have some "non-vital" buttons that click and not the most used ones...

 

[Dubadai]

Well as it seems this one is even worse, and even when cold a lot of the buttons have issues when being pressed... So far I have found that the following buttons have issues:

1,2,3,4,5,6, O, P, Å, A, S, D, J, K, L, Ö, Ä, ‘, BACKSPACE, B, M, COMMA, PERIOD, Right arrow, Left arrow, SHIFT, Right CMD, Right Option.

After talking to the store they offered to exchange the keyboard, and making sure that when replacing it, the buttons would make that click sound... Don't know how I feel about it since I am sure that its the keyboard itself, not that there are single buttons or whatever that is causing this...

 

[TripleMoxy]

Well as it seems this one is even worse, and even when cold a lot of the buttons have issues when being pressed... So far I have found that the following buttons have issues:

1,2,3,4,5,6, O, P, Å, A, S, D, J, K, L, Ö, Ä, ‘, BACKSPACE, B, M, COMMA, PERIOD, Right arrow, Left arrow, SHIFT, Right CMD, Right Option.

After talking to the store they offered to exchange the keyboard, and making sure that when replacing it, the buttons would make that click sound... Don't know how I feel about it since I am sure that its the keyboard itself, not that there are single buttons or whatever that is causing this...

I'm sorry to hear about your dreadful experience. I gave up after a couple of replacements, but I'm continuing to hope that they'll fix the problem so that I can buy a machine.

I had the Retina MacBook with the first generation of butterfly keys, and that didn't have the problems that the second generation seems to have.

 

[xapp]

Here is a trick, when the button starts "clicking" - press and hold it for a minute. The "clicking" will disappear for some time.

 

[mataklap]

I am on my 4th macbook pro after malfunctioning keys... and now the 3 is doubling!! So bizarre for a €3200 machine.

 

[Clairvoyant129]

I have the clicking issue on 7 and 9... only when the machine is toasty. Not sure if I want to replace this, really annoying... should not be happening on a $3600 machine.

 

[seeforyourself]

I'm up to macbook pro number 10... That's right 10!!!! After the 5th replacement I decided to just return it/buy it every 2 weeks until I get one without a problem... I could care less how bad that sounds what i'm doing. They ALL have faulty keys when heated up (high cpu ussage). This one I'm currently typing on has high pitched clicking even when not heated up (A key only). When the computer is heated up, the keys DELETE (backspace) and the whole top row (with letters) make a high pitched, sticky sound. My 10th is by far the worse.


I stopped going to the Apple Store in Upper East Side Manhattan because they are getting suspicious of me, even though I SHOWED them the problem in front of them... I guess I'm the only one who actually complains of this issue? I guess I will go to one of the other 5 apple stores in New York City until they get it right!!!

I hope apple acknowledged the issue and will be fixing it in the next Macbook pro update thats coming soon. If not, I will stop the exchanging game and will buy a cheap PC laptop until the next redesign... Their political involvement is starting to irritate me anyways. They should be acknowledging this common issue before politics.


BTW this 10th replacement was manufactured on 1/23/17

 

[LegolasWang]

After running the computer on high load all day, the only buttons that are still clicking are the A, C, and Z buttons...

This is weird...

I'm having similar issues. Some keys fixed themselves after few hours. The rest(majority) never fixed and become even worse as time goes by

 

[ilifecomputer]

Nothing surprises me in these forums anymore. I'm all for believing that this is a real issue but if you're 10 systems deep, give it up. You're getting closer to the central limit theorem and should be able to say and recognize that on average every one you buy will have the same issue. Save some water for the fish.

 

[Sanpete]

Nothing surprises me in these forums anymore. I'm all for believing that this is a real issue but if you're 10 systems deep, give it up. You're getting closer to the central limit theorem and should be able to say and recognize that on average every one you buy will have the same issue. Save some water for the fish.

The record here is 13. I'm guessing some people are more sensitive to this than others.

 

[Dubadai]

Returned the laptop now. Seems like a dead end to me. Hopefully they will offer a fix as soon as possible. And as soon as they bring a fix I'll buy it again!

 

[MrGuder]

I agree if your up to #10 you need to give it up and move on. In addition, so what if you find that perfect #11 that doesn't mean that in 3 weeks you won't start getting some clicky keys. Then what you back to where you were before. In fact anyone who has gone through 5 or more exchanges do you really "trust" this laptop enough to keep it the long haul? I'm guessing no.

I think some feel if they exchange enough units Apple will change the design. Good luck with that as changes never happen that fast.

 

[HansDiag]

Yep, now I'm in here too. First I had that rattling fan noise - it comes back from time to time. No, for the first Time since i got the machine (its about a month old now) i ran it a bit hot (2 downloads, installing something on steam, just warm to the touch) and what do you know? The clicky-keyboard. Good thing i remembered this thread... I'll watch it for some time, dont want to do the replacement routine if I can avoid it but I'll take action for sure before the warranty runs out. I'm not paying €3600 for a machine with scratching fan and clicking keys...

A Pro machine where you cant type while rendering...

 

[Sanpete]

Yep, now I'm in here too. First I had that rattling fan noise - it comes back from time to time. No, for the first Time since i got the machine (its about a month old now) i ran it a bit hot (2 downloads, installing something on steam, just warm to the touch) and what do you know? The clicky-keyboard. Good thing i remembered this thread... I'll watch it for some time, dont want to do the replacement routine if I can avoid it but I'll take action for sure before the warranty runs out. I'm not paying €3600 for a machine with scratching fan and clicking keys...

A Pro machine where you cant type while rendering...

If your fan is noisy you should have already returned the machine. Make a video of the sound when it happens to provide to Apple.