Well that was a fun evening. It was an evening of twists and turns, of drama, of troubleshooting.

So this afternoon I came home after running some errands, and switched on my MacBook. I used it earlier in the day and shut it down while I was gone. When I reached the login screen, I discovered that my MacBook’s built-in keyboard and trackpad weren’t responding. Neither would accept any input whatsoever. Thinking it was a one-time glitch, I plugged in a USB mouse and restarted.

It didn’t make a difference. Same result.

I logged in with a USB keyboard and mouse and checked System Profiler to see ifmy MacBook still recognized its own keyboard and trackpad. It did. Okay, at least the computer still knew the keyboard and trackpad still existed.

To narrow it down as a software problem or hardware problem, I grabbed my Leopard DVD and booted from it.  Same result. Dead keyboard and trackpad. Sigh. Restart. Launch Safari, do a little searching, realize that others have experienced similar problems that required repair. Ugh.

At this point, thinking it was a hardware issue that would require a trip to the repair shop, I called Apple shortly before 5 PM to set up a repair request. After spending about ten minutes on hold--a little longer than previous times I’ve called Apple--a woman answered the call.

I described my problem to her, making note to mention that it had occurred even when I booted off another disk. She then instructed me to get the CD that came with my computer and run Apple Hardware Test (and the built-in keyboard and trackpad still wasn’t working, even when booting off the hardware test disc).  I’m not exactly sold on the Apple Hardware Test, being I’ve had logic board issues on two iBooks that the hardware test missed. I ran the test anyway, just in case. It found no trouble, even after running the extended test. While the extended test was running, the tech put me on hold for a good ten minutes as she consulted with another tech support agent. When she returned, I told her the hardware test came back negative. Her next piece of advice confused me.

Run an archive and install.

Uh, what? What good is that going to do? I’ve booted off secondary disks more than once, and it made no difference. What good would reinstalling the OS do? I tried to explain this to her again, in case she didn’t hear me the first time. She then mentioned something about the driver or something, and reinstalling the OS would correct this--I don’t know exactly what she said because I was in a state of bewilderment, trying to digest her advice. I have generally had a good experience with Apple’s tech support, so this was the first time I felt their advice was flat-out wrong.

I then asked for a case number, thanked her, and ended the call. At this point I already decided to just back everything up and try calling Apple again in the morning. Once the backup was complete, I shut down my MacBook and used my iBook G4 for the time being.

But I was still curious why I was told to reinstall the OS when it was clear that the OS wasn’t at fault. I also realized that I never actually shut down the MacBook and started from a cold boot in any of my troubleshooting. I’ve had funky issues in the past that could only be cured by shutting the MacBook down and starting from a cold boot (e.g. the screen backlight not coming on after waking from sleep) So about an hour ago, after letting my MacBook sit for a while, I decided to try it again. Switch on. Wait for login screen. Hold breath.

Lo and behold, my trackpad and keyboard worked again.

So the moral of the story? Try every simple fix humanly possible--logging out and logging back in, restarting, shutting down and starting up from a cold boot, and so forth--before picking up that phone. It was a case where both he tech and the user (me) over-thought the situation, with neither arriving at the right conclusion. I won’t speak too soon, because that issue could always rear its ugly head again, but for the time being it looks like I avoided having to send my MacBook in for repair. Whew.

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