After coffee spill, keyboard acts as if shift key is pressed

Question

MacBook Air 13" Early 2015

The March 2015 update of Apple's 13" MacBook Air features fifth generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, resulting in slightly increased performance and battery life.

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MicGer @micger

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crwdns2931729:0crwdne2931729:0: Yan 16, 2022

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After coffee spill, keyboard acts as if shift key is pressed

Hey all,

This is my first time perusing this site…. Thanks all for the great community and how to guides. Wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to solve a recent problem of mine.

I accidentally spilled a cup of coffee over my Macbook’s keyboard. After a quick facepalm, I turned the laptop upside down to let the coffee drain out and air out for a few minutes. Later that day I tried using it. There didn’t seem to be any problems, except that all of my keypresses acted as if the shift key was depressed (capital letters, special chars instead of numbers, etc). I confirmed this by opening the keyboard viewer. It showed both the left and right shift keys as being depressed constantly.

I then made the mistake of trying to restart and clear the NVRAM. (I did, but that didn’t seem to help). I am now unable to log in since I can only type in caps, even when using an external usb keyboard. The odd thing is that, if I boot into the OS reinstall mode where I can open a Safari browser, I can type in lower case via the external keyboard. But, since I can’t login at the regular login screen, I suspect that somehow at that point things work differently and the shift key from the built in keyboard *is* being applied to the key presses from the external keyboard. (A counterpoint to that though is that I am only able to use the startup key combos from the external keyboard, which implies that the shift key is not being applied to the external keyboard in that context. Odd.)

Following an ifixit guide I pried off the two shift keys. I don’t see any dirt or grime.

My immediate concern is to be able to login using the external keyboard. Any ideas on how to do that?

Second question is if there is a way to salvage the built in keyboard or if I need to replace it.

Thanks!

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Alisha C @flannelist

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crwdns2931729:0crwdne2931729:0: Yan 17, 2022

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It sounds like the issue is probably only one or the of of your shift keys. When i use the keyboard viewer on my Mac, if I press one shift key both of them show as being activated. Likely the actual key switch has some damage which is causing it to read as being constantly depressed. Dirt or grime may not even be in play here. You can try just flooding the area under the keys with isopropyl alcohol since there may be some corrosion or coffee you can’t see, but that seems unlikely to work, and make cause more damage if the corrosion it moves makes its way to other components. Plus coffee tends to be fairly stubborn in my experience.

This may sound drastic, but it’s certain to work. Open the computer and simply unplug the keyboard cable (after unplugging the battery of course). If you spilled liquid, making sure nothing internally was affected is smart practice anyways. The keyboard cable runs through the trackpad, so you’ll have to remove the battery and disconnect the cable from the trackpad. And honestly that area is notorious for collection liquid anyways since there is little to protect it from liquid ingress.

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Thanks Alisha! I'll try to give that a shot over the weekend. Is it fairly straightforward to figure out which cable is the keyboard cable?

- Mitch

crwdns2934271:0Yan 17, 2022crwdnd2934271:0 MicGer crwdne2934271:0

@MicGer Yep. You can reference this guide if pictures help, but it's fairly obvious. Once you get the battery out, there's a very wide cable that's folded over and looks like it comes out from where the keyboard sits. That would be the one.

crwdns2934271:0Yan 18, 2022crwdnd2934271:0 Alisha C crwdne2934271:0

Thanks Alisha! Much appreciated. That did the trick.

In case anyone stumbles across this aferwards - this video at the 3:14 mark shows someone disconnecting the keyboard cable. There’s a little plastic retaining cap you need to flip open with a spudger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7DBmTs5...

crwdns2934271:0Yan 26, 2022crwdnd2934271:0 MicGer crwdne2934271:0

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Thanks Alisha! I'll try to give that a shot over the weekend. Is it fairly straightforward to figure out which cable is the keyboard cable?

- Mitch — MicGer
@MicGer Yep. You can reference this guide if pictures help, but it's fairly obvious. Once you get the battery out, there's a very wide cable that's folded over and looks like it comes out from where the keyboard sits. That would be the one. — Alisha C
Thanks Alisha! Much appreciated. That did the trick.

In case anyone stumbles across this aferwards - this video at the 3:14 mark shows someone disconnecting the keyboard cable. There’s a little plastic retaining cap you need to flip open with a spudger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7DBmTs5... — MicGer

MacBook Air 13" Early 2015

After coffee spill, keyboard acts as if shift key is pressed

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