Chosen Solution
Hello people. I have an old Macbook Pro Early 2011, 13”, (with 512 SSD and 8GB RAM which I added a while ago) which is also still my main work machine. A few weeks ago, the keyboard stopped working along with the trackpad. The battery was swollen, and thus I changed it. Now the trackpad is working but most keyboard keys are not. Here are the keys currently working on the keyboard: 0ìpòàù- (and space) Nothing else. I tried the following: PRAM reset (multiple times, using external keyboard)SMC resetCleaning and resitting the keyboard ribbon cableYes, I also checked the Accessibility settings for Mouse Keys I do not know if I should attempt to change the keyboard; I could not find anybody locally doing the repair for less than 200 EUR plus parts (due to the amount of time it takes to remove the keyboard), which is a lot of money for me. My fear is that the damage is elsewhere, like in logic board, so buying a keyboard would just be wasted money. Any tip you can have for me? I really need the computer but cannot afford a new one due to financial problems. Thanks.
You definitely need a working keyboard for testing. You can minimize work by disconnecting the battery, plugging in the new keyboard loose, without removing the logic board and the old one and after that plug in the magsafe, the Mac will start up by itself. If you have the mini-dvi adapter plug it into an external monitor/tv so that you can test the new keyboard. Be careful to isolate the KB bottom which is metal and might cause shorts. If it’s just the KB you’ll have to remove all and everything to reach the old KB for replacement, it takes time and patience but it can be done. Honestly 200€ for a KB replacement sounds pretty greedy to me.
