Chosen Solution

My coworker accidentally spilled about a bottle capful of water on to my MacBook 13" Aluminum Unibody Late 2008 (A1278) keyboard. He immediately wiped it up and told me about it. About 5 minutes later, I realized my keys “A” through “L” and keys “Z” through ,“M” weren’t working. I shut down my computer, took out the battery, and let it sit open and upside down (like a tent) for the remainder of the day. The next day I put everything back together and tried the keys again and they still didn’t work. Everything else on the computer works fine except those 2 rows of keys. I’ve been around a lot of forums trying to read up and find out what my next step should be but am not sure. I took the back piece off to reveal the logic board and dusted everything off - I didn’t see any water or visible damage. A lot of people recommend completely taking apart the Macbook (eek!) and blow drying everything. I just need to know:

  1. If the keys aren’t working now, would they even work if I tried that?
  2. If it doesn’t work, what needs to be replaced? I hear some people replacing logic boards and others replacing keyboards. Are they connected to each other or separate pieces of the laptop? Sorry if this sounds confusing, but I need to figure out what to do next because I’m really dreading going to Apple with this issue and paying a ridiculous amount for repair (especially if I might be able to handle this myself). Thanks for any help!

If the keys aren’t working after you’ve completely dried it out, and an external keyboard works and runs the machine, your keys have shorted out. Unfortunately this requires an upper case replacement and entails tearing the whole machine down. Here’s the part needed: MacBook Pro 13" Unibody (Mid 2009-Mid 2010) Upper Case Labor costs will run about $200 normally as this is a difficult repair and it’s very easy to damage the connectors on the logic board. Here’s the guide on doing it: MacBook Pro 13" Unibody Mid 2009 Upper Case Replacement So your total cost for repair is just under $500. Frankly I would have this done by a professional because if you pop a connector off the logic board, guess who has to pay for that repair?

My sister-in-law had the same problem…spilled Fabuloso on the keyboard and the whole thing went out. To top it off…the Keyboard on an A1278 MacBook Pro 13-inch (Mid 2010) model is connected to the power button so the system didn’t start up. I had disconnect and reconnect the keyboard ribbon to get it to start up and use an external keyboard. RESOLVED: Bought a keyboard (NO UPPER CASE) from ebay…when it arrived…I removed the bottom case and the logic board, speakers, cd drive, HDD and then the keyboard…(all 52 TINY screws on that keyboard)! It was a long process…about 1 hour…but for $30 USD…it was well worth it rather than 200 from Apple or other computer store. I am an IT so this was easy for me. It might be a bit of a challenge for non-technical people. BUT it is do-able! GOOD LUCK!

This is weird, Mayer I respect you and your work but stop telling people to buy the whole upper part when its possible to change only the keyboard. What are your interests here? Are your seriously trying to help people or making them send their laptops to you? 500$ compared to 30$ is ridicolous

Same thing happened to me. Since I almost always used my Apple Bluetooth keyboard ANYWAY, I probably won’t ever bother fixing it. If you can’t find a cheap way to fix the built-in keyboard, look on eBay or Craigslist or just go to your local Best Buy or whatever and I’d recommend the actual Apple Bluetooth (wireless) keyboard. It’s fantastic! But you could also pick up a cheap ($5-$15) USB-connected auxiliary keyboard at various discount stores, which you can usually just plug in and it should work immediately. These solutions aren’t ideal, but they’re very quick, cheaper, and if you’re like me, you’ll prefer the Apple Bluetooth keyboard over the built-in keyboard ANYWAY…jst not quite as convenient to carry around with you, but it IS very slimline…not bulky or heavy AT ALL.

I need help my keyboard has the same issue except my keys work. The difference is my keys activate other keys. For example, space activates the =/+, the delete button raises the volume and was wondering if anyone knew how to fix this issue?

I have this problem too. My solution is to have an USB keyboard and mouse plus an external monitor and use my MacBook Pro merely as a desktop computer. This worked nicely for more than a year, but somehow my problem got worse recently! At startup and login, I am no longer able to enter my password because keys are being typed in by it self … When I do get in somehow (after numerous retries…) I run the following command to disable my keyboard: sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTCKeyboard.kext/ After this, the internal keyboard is disabled and I am able to use the system using the USB keyboard :-) Now, I am looking for a way to have this shell command run automatically, at startup, BEFORE login. Does anyone have an idea on how to do that? Should I use crontab?

Maybe I need to post in new thread , but I have similar problem, where my asd keys work intermittently. With no obvious correlation to temperature, battery/power plug, pressure, repetition, other keys… I have tried mac help & they suggested “sticky keys” which was not the solution. I tried adding another “input source” through keyboard settings in system, which was not the solution. I can plug in a usb keyboard & it works fine. It acts like a software issue in how it is intermittent: on & fine, off & nothing, or off unless I type it 5 or 10 times.

I poured soaped water on my external keyboard and the affected row of keys stopped working. I set it up on the fan and left it there overnight with the fan running and when I came back the next day, all the keys were working! am actually using it to type right now.

Use the hair dryer and blow without heat, it worked for me