June 4th, 2006
Sticky space bar
As you can probably guess I use my MacBook Pro all the time. It’s my primary machine and blogging for ZDNet, editing the PowerPage, email and IM keep me pretty busy. A couple of weeks back my MBP keyboard started acting a little wonky.
I use the MacBook Pro’s built-in keyboard about 75 percent of the time (the other 25 percent of the time I use an Apple Bluetooth keyboard) and about three weeks ago the space bar started sticking. It wouldn’t stick entirely, but instead would come up very slowly after being pressed. While not a problem initially, it started coming up slower and slower and often wouldn’t return to the "unpressed" position by the time I needed to use it again resulting in a lot of sentences withoutspacesinthem.
My space bar also started making a slightly weirder click than it used to make, which has me worried. You’ll have to take me at my word that I didn’t spill a Dr. Pepper, coffee or any other liquid into the keyboard (all the other keys are fine) and that I didn’t otherwise cause the keyboard any trauma. It just started sticking one day.
Wanting to get to the bottom of the problem I carefully removed the space bar from the three scissors actuators that it’s attached to, hoping to find a Cheeto, gummy bear or a bit of a Tasty Kake lodged underneath - but no such luck. Carefully wiping the under the space bar area with a dry Q-Tip helped a little but now the problem is intermittent.
Concerned that my sticky space bar was going to return at the most inopportune time I took my MBP to the Genius Bar at Apple’s 5th Avenue store in New York. I booked my appointment on the Web using Apple’s online calendaring system and spoke to a genius about my key. Unfortunately, as is almost always the case, the key was working fine while the tech looked at, so I was out of luck. I would have to bring it back in when I was having the problem. I’ve got an intermittent space bar and it’s driving me nuts.
Are your MacBook Pro keys all working fine? Any suggestions on how to unstick a sticky key?
Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
Subscribe to The Apple Core via Email alerts or RSS.
