Hello!
My mac’s been water damaged with the result being some keys (now only one key) being always pressed, and I was wondering what I should do about it and if the situation will get worse. My mac is a 13” Macbook Air from mid 2012 and currently has OS X 10.9.5.
Here’s the story. I’ve been wiping my macbook (pretty much the entire mac except the screen) with wet napkins or towels almost on a daily basis for the past 3-4 years to clean it (I’d wipe and dry it with something dry afterwards), especially after using it outside in the library or at school. Two nights ago, after doing my usual cleaning, the letters I was typing became weird symbols like å∂𪨥†∂…å¬. I realized afterwards that the control or option key had been stuck or jammed internally. After a while, I think I was pressing the power key or something when the mac just started restarting randomly, around two to three times. Then it just shut down and would not turn back on. I flipped it upside down with the screen at 90 degrees to the keyboard, put the keyboard onto a table, and put the screen parallel to the table and pointed to the floor (I was trying to let the water out). After a while, it just turned back on and was in safe boot. The next day, I realized that the shift key was stuck now. I had to plug in a keyboard to type in lowercase and get into my regular account, since the password had lower case letters.
I brought it to the Apple store, and the Genius Bar guy told me pretty much what I already knew, but he also told me that there are problems with the … I seriously don’t remember what he said. But what happened was he tried to get me out of safe boot by plugging in a keyboard into the Mac and typing certain things while booting. It didn’t do a thing, and, because of this, he told me that there were other problems with my mac as the inputs weren’t working, or something like that. I just do not remember what it was he said. He then suggested (and essentially implied that I had better do this) that I send this in for repairs for $755 before tax, totaling at around $850+ after tax. I of course declined.
Here is the current situation. I used karabiner to disable the left shift key, and I turned on the firmware password to disable safe boot. This solves the pressed shift key problem, except that it’s still pressed until I log in and turn on karabiner. The remaining situation to be dealt with is the power button. Firstly, unlike before, holding it down for a few seconds doesn’t put it to sleep. Second, now when I press control + power, that puts it to sleep. Third, when I am at the log back in screen (waking up from sleep, where you type password), pressing the power key doesn’t put the mac back to sleep. Instead, if I press it multiple times, it will randomly either increase or decrease the brightness, or decrease the keyboard backlight. These aren’t exactly problems, but it suggests that there is still something wrong with the power button.
Now as it currently is, I’m pretty much fine with my mac. Other than the disabled shift key and the weird effects with the power button, it’s basically normal and functioning like it used to. My main concern is simply that the situation might deteriorate. Maybe the corrosion will get worse, or there’s problems that have yet to surface. As long as it doesn’t get worse, I’ll have it as it is.
So here are my questions: (1) Should I have the keyboard opened, examined, and cleaned, or should I replace the keys (left shift, control, option, power), or what’s the idea? (2) Will my mac get worse or will this pretty much be as bad as it gets? I suppose maybe this second question can only be answered through an actual examination of the mac. I will have my mac looked over and diagnosed in Simple Mac (third party store in NYC) in a few days, but I was just wondering what you guys think of it just what I’ve said.
My mac’s been water damaged with the result being some keys (now only one key) being always pressed, and I was wondering what I should do about it and if the situation will get worse. My mac is a 13” Macbook Air from mid 2012 and currently has OS X 10.9.5.
Here’s the story. I’ve been wiping my macbook (pretty much the entire mac except the screen) with wet napkins or towels almost on a daily basis for the past 3-4 years to clean it (I’d wipe and dry it with something dry afterwards), especially after using it outside in the library or at school. Two nights ago, after doing my usual cleaning, the letters I was typing became weird symbols like å∂𪨥†∂…å¬. I realized afterwards that the control or option key had been stuck or jammed internally. After a while, I think I was pressing the power key or something when the mac just started restarting randomly, around two to three times. Then it just shut down and would not turn back on. I flipped it upside down with the screen at 90 degrees to the keyboard, put the keyboard onto a table, and put the screen parallel to the table and pointed to the floor (I was trying to let the water out). After a while, it just turned back on and was in safe boot. The next day, I realized that the shift key was stuck now. I had to plug in a keyboard to type in lowercase and get into my regular account, since the password had lower case letters.
I brought it to the Apple store, and the Genius Bar guy told me pretty much what I already knew, but he also told me that there are problems with the … I seriously don’t remember what he said. But what happened was he tried to get me out of safe boot by plugging in a keyboard into the Mac and typing certain things while booting. It didn’t do a thing, and, because of this, he told me that there were other problems with my mac as the inputs weren’t working, or something like that. I just do not remember what it was he said. He then suggested (and essentially implied that I had better do this) that I send this in for repairs for $755 before tax, totaling at around $850+ after tax. I of course declined.
Here is the current situation. I used karabiner to disable the left shift key, and I turned on the firmware password to disable safe boot. This solves the pressed shift key problem, except that it’s still pressed until I log in and turn on karabiner. The remaining situation to be dealt with is the power button. Firstly, unlike before, holding it down for a few seconds doesn’t put it to sleep. Second, now when I press control + power, that puts it to sleep. Third, when I am at the log back in screen (waking up from sleep, where you type password), pressing the power key doesn’t put the mac back to sleep. Instead, if I press it multiple times, it will randomly either increase or decrease the brightness, or decrease the keyboard backlight. These aren’t exactly problems, but it suggests that there is still something wrong with the power button.
Now as it currently is, I’m pretty much fine with my mac. Other than the disabled shift key and the weird effects with the power button, it’s basically normal and functioning like it used to. My main concern is simply that the situation might deteriorate. Maybe the corrosion will get worse, or there’s problems that have yet to surface. As long as it doesn’t get worse, I’ll have it as it is.
So here are my questions: (1) Should I have the keyboard opened, examined, and cleaned, or should I replace the keys (left shift, control, option, power), or what’s the idea? (2) Will my mac get worse or will this pretty much be as bad as it gets? I suppose maybe this second question can only be answered through an actual examination of the mac. I will have my mac looked over and diagnosed in Simple Mac (third party store in NYC) in a few days, but I was just wondering what you guys think of it just what I’ve said.
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