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The keyboard on my friend's Mac is not working. The mouse works fine (it plugs in to the keyboard), but the keyboard doesn't work. The mouse behaves strangely too: it offers options when items are clicked, as if the right option button was down.

Quite possibly the keyboard wires are pulled and twisted (things are rugged over there), and the mouse is confused.

  1. Is there a mouse or keyboard setting that could be causing this?
  2. Is there an on-screen keyboard she could use, to avoid the (possibly) broken keyboard?
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ok, I found the onscreen keyboard. It is turned on via 'international' settings on the control panel. But still would like the keyboard back. – Bobbi Bennett Sep 3 '11 at 2:39

1 Answer

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Have her look at her 'control' keys on her key board. If she is getting a contextual menu on her Mac when she clicks with the mouse, one of the control keys is registering as being depressed. This is likely to happen if something was spilled in the keyboard at some time.

As far as on screen keyboards go, if her mouse is acting erratically how will that help? She would be better served to find any USB keyboard lying around and use it. Macs don't necessarily have to be used with an Apple keyboard. Any keyboard can be used. She will just have to figure out where the meta keys are mapped to, Google it. Hint F12 will eject your CDROM.

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Thanks. She says a key does look down, is trying to pull it up. Life is difficult there, can not get back to where the plugs are etc. – Bobbi Bennett Sep 3 '11 at 2:53
OMG, its working, she says! – Bobbi Bennett Sep 3 '11 at 2:54
Glad it helped. – C0D3M0NK3Y Sep 3 '11 at 3:05

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