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Model A1297 Unibody: Early 2009, Mid 2009, Mid 2010, Early 2011 & Late 2011

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keys D to L not working and noisy right fan after logic board repair

Hello,

I had my logic board changed under Apple's extended repair program in 2015 when it was still relevant for 17 inch MacBooks. 2 years later, during autumn 2017 my (replaced) logic board stopped working again. Not being covered by warranty or any repair program anymore, I had to resort to baking my logic board and hoping for the best according to this guide. Fortunately, it helped and I was happy I had saved some 200 bucks on new logic board.

After reassembling and starting using my repaired MacBook I noticed that the right fan was making weird buzzing sounds, very similar to this one. It is interesting that when I apply pressure to this part of the MacBook's body, the buzzing sound instantly disappears.

Soon, I noticed the D, F, G, H, J, K, L keys growing non-functional. During the time when they keys' non-functioning was intermittent, either none of them was working or all of them were.

Any advice please?

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Having passed several months, now only keys H to L work intermittently. D to G work well. No idea why.

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did you bake the full board or did you just heat the gpu. also when reapplying the heat sink did you ensure the screws were tight to prevent any vibration and the same with the fan. for the keyboard I believe you may just need to reseat the ribbon cable, maybe you didn't reseat it all the way in. give it a go Ann let me know how you get on.

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I baked the full board. I believe I was very carefull not to leave any screw loose but I may try to disassemble it again and be extra careful to tighten any loose screws.

As for the keyboard, I will try to reseat the ribbon cable but here (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/589...) I read that those letters are directly connected in a straight line, so I think that if it were for the ribbon cable all the keys would be refusing to work or would be working intermittently. Anyway, I will give your suggestions a try and then I will report back.

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Ok, I think I have sorted out the problem with the fan. I suspect the culprit was the screw on the lower left (https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/ig...) because its thread is damaged and it could not be properly driven into, staying loose. I have taken the screw out and left the thread empty.

The problem with the keys still persists even after reseating the ribbon cable. However, subjectively I perceive the keys work more often than they did before.

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I have the problem very often and its almost always that damm ribbon cable id keep reseating it a few times and see if you get any difference.

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I have already reseated it a few times. I'm not gonna open up my MacBook several times a day

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I have noticed a very interesting thing regarding my keyboard problem. When I press and hold all the non-functioning keys (d, f, g, h, j, k, l) together simultaneously, and, while holding these keys, I press "e" key, the output is not the expected letter "e" but rather letters "eirtuz" altogether (sometimes I may get a different combination of those letters).

Analogically, while holding the "d, f, g, h, j, k, l" letters and pressing any one of the "e, r, t, y, u, i, o" I get a different combination of "e, r, t, y, u, i, o" letters as output, like "ueirtz", "ertuz", "iortuz" and so on.

The same happens with the "c, v, b, n, m, comma" letters. Again, holding the "d, f, g, h, j, k, l" letters and pressing any one of the "c, v, b, n, m, comma" gives a combination of "c, v, b, n, m, comma" characters, like "bcmnv" and so.

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While I think the issue is most likely a hardware issue, It would probably be worth it to try an SMC reset (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295). If the issue persists, open up the MacBook one more time and inspect the ribbon cable connector pins for any damge/dust, as well as the logic board for anything that looks out of place. Let me know if any of these methods turns up anything helpful.

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I had done SMC reset several times, did not help. I also inspected the cable and the logic board and found nothing out of place. I still tried to clean from any possible dust particle without any success.

I have noticed though that having the keyboard backlight set at maximum helps, the keys work more often.

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Martin will be eternally grateful.
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