unresponsive MBA keyboard & trackpad

[Mr Downtown]

I just got my new (refurb) MBA a week ago and haven't yet installed very much onto it; just surfed the web and admired it as a design object. Now neither the keyboard nor touchpad seem to work, even after three restarts. I can move the cursor using an external USB mouse, and the power-on key still works. Before I send it back to Apple, I just wanted to make sure there's not some setting (like Curious Cat Mode) that I might have inadvertently activated in which this behavior is a feature.

[Cellocorman]

Your motherboard will need to be replaced... this is an internally documented failure with apple... I've had this repair done TWICE already!!

I should point out that you will likely find that bluetooth and one of the two external USB ports have also failed. If you let it cool down and restart all will function again... until they don't. The condition seems to be degenerative though, lasting shorter and shorter periods before failing. If you plug in a keyboard/mouse to the working usb port you will find that the system is not frozen.

I also had a weird thing where the restart chime would just repeat over and over when you forced it to shut down and tried restarting immediately.

Hopefully Apple will quickly do a redesign of the Motherboard... i've already seen this once with my THIRD mb!

[Black]

Cellocorman wrote:
Your motherboard will need to be replaced... this is an internally documented failure with apple... I've had this repair done TWICE already!!

I should point out that you will likely find that bluetooth and one of the two external USB ports have also failed. If you let it cool down and restart all will function again... until they don't. The condition seems to be degenerative though, lasting shorter and shorter periods before failing. If you plug in a keyboard/mouse to the working usb port you will find that the system is not frozen.

I also had a weird thing where the restart chime would just repeat over and over when you forced it to shut down and tried restarting immediately.

Hopefully Apple will quickly do a redesign of the Motherboard... i've already seen this once with my THIRD mb!

Is this something that tends to crop up after months of trouble-free use, or is it more of a "if it's gonna happen you'll know it pretty soon" kind of thing?

[OWC Larry]

We have also seen reports of sporadic issues with Keyboard and Trackpad on the MacBook Air 2011.. a USB controller chip issue / defective maybe, I would suspect. eitherway, no fix short of Apple swapping the unit/logic board.

[Black]

OWC Larry wrote:
We have also seen reports of sporadic issues with Keyboard and Trackpad on the MacBook Air 2011.. a USB controller chip issue / defective maybe, I would suspect. eitherway, no fix short of Apple swapping the unit/logic board.

Mr. D did not buy a 2011 MBA-- he bought a 2010 refurb so he could run Snow.

[Mr Downtown]

I just thought I'd report back. Apple was pretty nice, treating it as a DOA, and must have apologized 30 times for the issue, the hassle, putting me on hold, etc. This was one of the $699 refurbs, which are sold out at the moment. They took $150 off the cost of an $899 Duo since the lower-priced one is unavailable, and are cross-shipping the new one to me.