Comments on: The Curious Case of the Missing MacBook Pro Keyboard and Trackpad

By: Sean Chandler

Sean Chandler — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 20:37:32 +0000

I can’t get hardware growler to do anything when pressing on the ribbon cable on my A1181 black macbook

USB keyboard and mouse work OK though

I’m not sure if to replace the cable or not, or if I have a logic board problem

anyone have similar experiences with an A1181 macbook?

By: John

John — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:41:42 +0000

It’s pretty obvious it’s a design flaw. What really sucks is my macbook pro is 3 years old and still runs great excvept for this flaw. But it’s a big flaw and is really really annoying. I paid $2000 for this laptop and 3 years is ridiculous. I actually had my isight cable go as well but was able to pick one up on ebay and install it myself.
If you buy a keyboard cable on ebay the same problem will happen because the cable is flawed.
It’s too bad that someone couldn’t come out with a 3rd party cable. I’ll bet they could sell quite a few.
I was thinking of trying to cut the cable and solder extensions to the contacts, but I’m not sure if thats even possible, it’s a very thin cable.
Pretty sure Apple would rather you buy a new macbook than fix your old one but until this problem gets fixed I’m never buying another Apple product.

By: Biberkopf

Biberkopf — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 14:26:37 +0000

Excellent error analysis and solution by Clayton Lei. Thanx A LOT. This article should be on apple.com instead of endless, confused, and confusing assumptions by more or less desperate users. The HardwareGrowl trick is excellent thought our. It helped me diagnosing my own, and now I can see, that in fact there are numerous small fall disconnections and reconnections going on while tabbing away on my keyboard.
I think, however, it’s important to stress (as Bryan has already done) that we are seemingly facing two different problems with similar symptom, the other one being a sofware/OS bug of some kind.
But kudos to Clayton beautiful, clear, and intelligent error analysis. It helped me a lot!

By: dan

dan — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 16:45:10 +0000

Fixed with a 0.5″x1″ pice of notepad paper. Macedge NH took $90 worth of labor to tell me there’s nothing wrong with the trackpad or the keyboard. Thank you, Macedge.

By: Stewart

Stewart — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:40:10 +0000

Thanks for the article!!!!

So far so good – although I have probably just jinxed it by posting this…

By: Electrapilot

Electrapilot — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 00:44:25 +0000

Hi All, the intermittent operation of the trackpad and keyboard is most DEFINITELY down to the orange ribbon cable. Period. Yes, using a folded post-it note, will temporarily solve the problem, as will unlatching the ribbon from the trackpad circuit board and re-plugging it. BUT EVENTUALLY IT WILL FAIL COMPLETELY! The problem, as some folks here have already said, is the slight curve in the orange ribbon cable as it joins the trackpad circuit board. Apple designed this cable just slightly too long, which is why it’s slightly raised. The intermittent pressure from the battery against this raised ribbon cable causes miniature breaks in the tiny copper wires that pass through the ribbon cable. It’s called “metal fatigue” and in this case causes a broken connection. So, there you have it, the problem explained. This is, without doubt, a design flaw. I shall be taking all of these comments to Apple and I shall also be taking legal advice on what steps to take next. No amount of replacement keyboards will stop the fault recurring.

By: DavidDRUMEDOMUNDUM

DavidDRUMEDOMUNDUM — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 08:41:09 +0000

On a rural road a state trooper pulled this farmer over and said: “Sir, do you realize your wife fell out of the car several miles back?”

To which the farmer replied: “Thank God, I thought I had gone deaf!”

By: Rob Penner

Rob Penner — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:53:35 +0000

Thanks for the tip. It worked… much to my surprise.

By: Piezoman1

Piezoman1 — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 12:13:38 +0000

I did’t read all the posts here to see if anyone has already reported my problem or not, but my issue is a little different than the one discussed. My keyboard doesn’t NOT work, but certain keys seem to be keyed indefinately. For instance, I open my computer and I can’t even login because the e key is just scrolling across the text box. I am sometimes able to offset this by holding the delete key, but as soon as I release it the e key starts again. Restarting, pulling the battery,pushing on the cable, beating on the keyboard SOMETIMES works, but no ‘fix’ seems to be foolproof that I’ve discovered.

I think my best bet at this point is to get an external keyboard and mouse and try to disable the internal keyboard/trackpad entirely.

I’m sure I’ve found this issue discussed before, but can’t seem to find it now.

By: Joseph Gelmis

Joseph Gelmis — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:56:47 +0000

Patrick, I'd also be grateful if you'd share your experience: Did replacing the flex cable fix the problems? I'm ready to buy the part, but suspect I don't have the expertise to do a replacement myself -- so would have to find and pay a repair person I can trust to do the job.