[finknottle]

I just want to get your opinions on this and what I can do. Sometime ago maybe 10 weeks I put a post here on MacNN about a problem I was having with my iBook 700Mhz, OS X.2.6, 640Mb Ram. The keyboard, instead of giving the letters pressed give numbers instead as if I was holding the function button down (obviously I'm not!). It occurs infrequently but when it happens I am forced to restart the machine. It happens in OS 9 and OS X. The problem can be duplicated by pressing the function button once.
I have been through all this five times with Apple care (though the iBook is 11 months old). The first time they sent me a new keyboard which I had to fit myself. That went okay but did not rectify the problem. I then contacted them four time since where it has been picked up and returned four times without being fixed, the last time with message "fault could not be duplicated".which was Saturday. I talked to customer service before the last collection and she assured me that it would be give priority and be taken seriously this time. You can imagine my annoyance when after being collected on last Wednesday afternoon and returned Saturday morning from the UK (I live in Ireland) that it was not fixed AGAIN!! - also that was very quick, which leads me to believe it was hardly looked at.
What I can I do from here? Where do I stand?? Any suggestions on what to say next time I'm on to Apple??
This is really annoying me now

[fhoubi]

Tuff.... I don't know.

After my iBook 700 died 2 months ago it got repaired some 2 weeks later, it died again one day after the repair! It took me 3 weeks and about 6 calls to convince Applecare it was actually still broken. It crashed first with the screen going bezerk after a couple of hours, after a while always within 5 minutes...

But do not say they cannot repaire it fast, with the second repair DHL picked it up on a monday afternoon 5 pm, it got it back 2 days later, wednesday 10 am, repaired!

OS 9 and X seems to rule out a software only problem... Annoying... Try a way to force the problem appearing instantly?

[PCTek]

Are you sure the NumLock key isn't being turned on by accident?

The next time it happens, make sure the NumLock isn't on (The green light next to the button should be off.) If it happens, turn the NumLock on and then off again.

[Sosa]

Ahh, are all the keys giving you numbers or only, lets say UIOJKL789M?

[finknottle]

The numbers lock key does not work either when this happens (and the light is not on)., the key wil not do anything when pressed.

It can be forced to happen instantly by pressing the function key jusy once, then the iBook must be put to sleep to get it to work..

eject, brightness, return , delete & any key that does has a grey number/symbol on it as well...

Thanks for the help!

[finknottle]

Okay, I was on to customer relations and they said again that they would look into it but from their point of view, there is as yet no fault identified (which I understand I guess, but I'd love to string the engineer that hasn't done anything up by the private parts...unfortunately, they will believe him quicker than me ).
I will have to wait until tomorrow until they phone me back...

[radarbob]

Just a WAG (wild arse guess)... Maybe the problem is your keyboard control panel settings.

Keyboard Control Panel
Sets what keyboard layout you want. There is also an options... button there. From options you can set what hotkeys will rotate through the keyboard layouts. Check out what's set.

Reboot to OS 9, not Classic..
And checkout the Keyboard control panel again. ONLY in OS 9 will you see the "function keys..." button next to the options... button mentioned above. Here is where you can set how the function keys behave.

[waffffffle]

I'm still confused as to exactly what you're problem is. That could also be why Apple doesn't understand. I have had a problem where AppleCare completely ignored what was wrong, downgraded my OS installation and sent the computer back to me.

What you should do is explain the problem in detail, and attach a note to the screen of your computer, explaining it exactly.

From my perspective it sounds like you don't realize how the numlock key works, and I imagine that is what Apple believes as well. You need to be much more specific in explaining the problem.

[finknottle]

Okay - I KNOW how the number lock works and I have had five chances to explain it to Applecare techs. They said there was a problem...its the engineer/tech who can't read the case report.....the fact is that pressing the function key once and for all stops other buttons working (and that is just to duplicate the problem...). If left to its own it will happen eventually without pressing function/number lock etc.
When this happens, numbers lock does not work either i.e the button will not light up when depressed.
I have attached multiple notes and telephone numbers and email address with instructions to contact me if they couldn't understand what was wrong...not that they did.
I have three iBooks....this is not normal.

[Cipher13]

Uh, this sounds much more like a software problem.

Reset the PRAM, boot into OS9, and see if it still happens there... I bet it doesn't.

[Fast iBook]

i have problems with apples rpair system too... just call em up keep calling till they wake up.

[finknottle]

It is unlikely to be a softwrae problem as it happens in OS 9 as well....if is was software it shouldn't happen then, should it??

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by finknottle:
It is unlikely to be a softwrae problem as it happens in OS 9 as well....if is was software it shouldn't happen then, should it??

That's just freakin' strange

Formatted and reinstalled?

[finknottle]

Yep. They told me to that on the second call to Applecare... I keep getting these Kernel Panics now when I try to log out or restart as well. I don't know if that's connected. That only starting happened after I reinstalled.