strange characters on screen when typing with keyboard on Macbook Pro

barrymanilow

Any ideas on how to fix this issue ,

Suddenly the characters coming up on the screen when typing are all weird. Like the letter l makes ~Á or some other odd nonsense symbol.

I hooked up an external keyboard and that types fine .So a hardware problem then I guess?

I fiddled with keyboard settings, language is set correctly etc .

Its a macbook pro .

Nothing was spilled on it to my knowledge .

Any Ideas ?

Sad Professor

One of the option keys are probably stuck.

barrymanilow

I removed both option keys ,

didn't make a difference

Idleater

There's a feature to show accent characters when you multiple type a key iirc. I get it occasionally when thinking while typing.

barrymanilow

Actually if anyone here could do me a big favor ....

could someone with a macbook pro hold the option key and type out a few characters and then tell me what the corresponding keys are so that I can at least completely rule out a stuck option key issue ,

Thanks

Tokyo

qwertyuiop
asdfghjkl
zxcvbnm

maps to the following characters when the option key is pressed:

œ∑´®†¥¨ˆøπ
åß∂ƒ©˙∆˚¬
Ω≈ç√∫˜µ

barrymanilow

Cheers Mike

Sad Professor

Any luck with this? Was it the option key?

barrymanilow

Hi it was the option key .

i removed it myself and cleaned the area and put the key back together (for both option keys ) but it made no difference so for a while I thought it wasn't.

took it into an apple store and the technician looked at it and said it was the option key but that it couldn't be unstuck and the specific macbook was too old so parts were unavailable . He gave me a free external keyboard , that works fine , bit of an annoyance to carry around but itll keep the laptop in service a bit longer .

Thanks for all help

ZENER

Which MBP is it ? Can you post "About This Mac" ?

Ken