A must for Mac laptop users... a/k/a "What do I do if my 'keyboard screw' lights up... it's never done that before!"

Every Macintosh laptop owner (like me) needs to know one thing purely by memory: resetting your laptop's PRAM. If your computer starts behaving very strangely... you'll want to first try resetting your PRAM according to the instructions here on the Apple site "Macintosh: How to Reset PRAM and NVRAM" (for Powerbook and iBook owners, "PowerBook and iBook: Resetting Power Management Unit (PMU)").

You'll need to commit these instructions to memory as you may not be able to consult the Internet for your answer when strange problems strike... read on for what just happened to me and how I recovered.

What's PRAM? Unless you're a tech-savvy type, don't worry about it. But, know that it includes some basic information that allows your laptop to boot (read: that means it's important stuff!). If you are a tech-savvy type... check this OSXFAQ entry out.

From time to time, you should "reset your PRAM" to keep your computer in good health. The information stored in PRAM can change... whether due to chance or a bad piece of code freakin' out... this makes the behavior of your laptop unpredictable.

For example, I came home from a meeting and started up my laptop... but something was different... I couldn't tell what at first. Then, I noticed that the little screw at the very top of the keyboard was lit up. That was weird. It had never done that before. Then when I tried to type, the type on the screen was totally wacky with only one out of five keys actually printing to the screen. For example, typing "joebeone" came across as "6*1." That was fucked up!

Okay, I thought, "I can solve this problem by borrowing a skill I learned from my PC days: I can reboot." (My Mac never needs rebooting, of course) After booting, at the login screen, I typed my login name and... HOLY SHIT!... the keyboard was still misbehaving. Doing the same kind of weird-substituion thing... I couldn't even friggin' log-in!!!

All the nights of nursing my Linux box in undergrad. came rushing back... I remembered the nights of frustration... the week or so before my specific problem could be diagnosed and trouble-shot by crack mailing lists like bug-grub (for GRUB) and the like. This was not happening. My Mac was jacked.

Then I remembered... what about resetting the PRAM? I did that once and it solved something... maybe I should try that again.

And, exactly five minutes later, I had reset my PRAM and my computer had booted... without the little screw at the top of the keyboard lit up! I retried the log-in screen... and it was fixed!

Every Mac user should know how to reset their PRAM. If the contents of your laptop are as dear to you as mine are to me... you might even want to get it tattooed somewhere you can consult easily; that is, not on your ass, wise-guy!).

Happy new year... next up on N.Q.B. ... my top ten album list of 2003 (as will be in Clink)... I guarantee that most of you will know exactly zero of the bands... but I do my research, I know what is good and what I like... maybe you'll like some of it.

Posted by joebeone at Diciembre 31, 2003 05:09 PM