*WARNING* About Apple Design Keyboard
Gilbert Awad
A warning about the new Apple Design Keyboard: using the
cntl-command-powerkey combination to try to reboot after a hang or crash
on may cause a mother-of-all-crashes instead of rebooting.
I had heard that this Keyboard had some problems (especially in terms of
key combinations not being able to excede three keys), but I find it
unacceptable on Apple's part to actually realese a product onto the
market which is not only cheap, but downright dangerous!
The problem was encountered on a newly installed 6100/60 8/160; a machine
I helped configure for my thesis director just last week (I myself own a
6100/84AV 24/250 with a 256k L2 cache, so the Mac is certainly no mystery
to me). The first time it happened I ended up doing troubleshooting on
the phone, and quite frankly was left pretty perplexed by what I was told
was going on with the poor PowerMac. The second time it happend to me
when I reflexively did the cntl-command-powerkey combination to
reboot from a hang despite knowing the Apple Design Keyboard's limitations.
Let me you: the system crash that followed was no ordinary system crash!
It seemed to completely blitz the hardware (the same thing had happend
the first time, and we had concluded the Mac was defective). After that
the Mac REFUSED TO REBOOT EVEN AFTER BEING TURNED OFF FOR TWO MINUTES and
then off and on again FOUR TIMES (a two minute pause was given between
the off and on sequence). On the fifth time I finally got a bad boot
tone and a 0000000F/00007FFF Sad Mac icon error. The Mac had even
refused to boot from the Disk Tools disk. Three more tries with the Mac
starting to boot from the HD and then hanging, then finnaly a clean boot
on the nineth try. Not a problem since, but then again, the power key is
now off limits!
Question: has anyone else had similar problems? Were they this serious?
And, short of pulling out the power key, is
there the slightest chance of fixing this problem so that no one will do
this by accident again? Note that we cannot (apparently) replace the
keyboard due to restrictions on the availability of Apple equipment for
our department (i.e., Design is all we get :-( ).
--
Gilbert Awad (gre...@llc.org)
Ste-Foy, Quebec, Canada
Kevin Stone
: Question: has anyone else had similar problems? Were they this serious?
: And, short of pulling out the power key, is
: there the slightest chance of fixing this problem so that no one will do
: this by accident again? Note that we cannot (apparently) replace the
: keyboard due to restrictions on the availability of Apple equipment for
: our department (i.e., Design is all we get :-( ).
I'm afraid I'm not responding to give you info but rather to ask
for it.. My brother has a 7100/66 with all the new hardware (keyboard
included). I do not know if we have the "Apple Design Keyboard." Is this
the extended key board with function keys and full key pad? Or is it
something more simple?
Anders Lundqvist
First of all, I've got an LC630 with the new Appple Design Keyboard and I've
never had any trouble with it. I've done the ctrl-cmd-pwr a couple of times (mostly
after running Marathon which crashes quite frequently after quitting) and I've
never _ever_ experienced any odd behavior!
Second of all, I can't really understand from your post why you are blaming the
keyboard for the crash. To me it seems like the mac is suffering from some kind
of hardware fault and it should probably be examined be a service technician before
it happens again. Why are you saying that the power key is off limits? Does it really
crash every time you use it? In that case, how do you turn on the computer? What had
happened to the computer right before you decided to reboot it using ctrl-cmd-pwr?
Finally, what are these well know limitations of the Apple Design Keyboard???
Regards,
Anders
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______________________________________________________________________________________
Anders Lundqvist | email: al...@isy.liu.se |
Division of Datatransmission | phone: +(46)-13281349 | THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Department of Electrical Engineering | fax: +(46)-13281339 |
Linkoping University, Sweden | Juggle 'till you drop... |
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