Comments on: MacBook Pro volume keys malfunction

Question: MacBook Pro volume keys malfunction

bashos_frog — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 10:51:32 -0800

The volume keys (f11/f12)on my macbook pro stop working, seemingly at random. When this happens, I still see the bars display in the middle of the screen, but the volume doesn't change. Anyone else get this, or have a fix?

Going to sysprefs still works, though. Restarting fixes it, but I'd like to see if there's something else I could do to fix it. It's a new intel macbook pro 15"
and other than this everything has worked wonderfully.

By: bluebird

bluebird — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 12:51:52 -0800

I think this is a long shot, but the other day a few keys on the left side of my keyboard stopped working. Resetting the PMU fixed it.

By: bashos_frog

bashos_frog — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 13:08:37 -0800

The keys themselves work, the volume control display with the little boxes comes up, and the boxes increase or decrease as you hit the keys, but the volume stays the same. Also, I'm a mac noob, so what's a PMU?

By: kosmonaut

kosmonaut — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 14:47:39 -0800

PMU = Power Management Unit. Unless I am mistaken, your MacBook Pro doesn't have a PMU (all Intel machines have something else called the SMC, System Management Controller). Here's how to reset the SMC.

Don't know if that will actually solve the problem but it may be worth a try.

By: bashos_frog

bashos_frog — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 15:45:49 -0800

thanks for the info, but as a normal restart seems to solve the issue, I don't think I need to reset the SMC. I guess I'll have to dig a little deeper and see if I can identify some process that could be restarted, rather than the whole OS.