OSx capslock stuck and mousepad unresponsive

sweavesweave boston
edited April 2011 in Science & Tech
Alright a friend of mine was telling me yesterday about how her laptop (sorry didn't tell me the model) recently had a problem where the where on booting up the system the caps-lock would be stuck on.
The caps-lock light would be times be lighting up and sometimes it would not light up.
There were also issues with the mouse-pad being unresponsive.
She told me that this occurred on several boot ups into the system.
She took it to the campus tech guys who then proceeded to remove programs. The only one she told me were removed were WoW, Vmware fusion (and thus XP). However I am not sure if those were the only ones removed or the only ones she remembered (which i think is more likely).
According to her the laptop is now functioning properly but she does want those programs reinstalled.
I'm going to meet up with her on Thursday to take a look at things.
When i asked if she had an anti-virus/firewall installed she kind of assumed the laptop had already come with those :tim:

Anyway since I'm not really a mac person are there any suggestions from you all as to what might have caused this (vague i know) but more importantly are there any diagnostic tools i should look into when take a look at the machine.

thanks

Comments

  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited April 2011
    I can't think of any reason why installing any software would lock the caps on, specifically from boot. Those programs wouldn't have even loaded yet. I imagine the guy basically ran a repair install and just got lucky.
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited April 2011
    Oh and no the mac doesn't come with any anti-virus software. But without stirring the hornets nest mac's because of their nix foundation are more resilient to attacks then windows because they have done a better job of separating the user layer from the actual kernel layer. Also mac's aren't affected by windows viruses. In particular this usually keeps you safe from email viruses. In that your mac can't be infected but if you forward that email to someone else they could be. Often mac's can be carriers of a virus in this way.

    So for someone who really doesn't understand how viruses and junk propogate they should get anti-virus software on their mac. Not so much for protecting themselves but to prevent them from passing it on to others. This goes infinitely more in a school environment.
  • sweavesweave boston
    edited April 2011
    thanks i'll install one anyway just to be sure.

    and i also couldn't really understand why uninstalling those programs would have had any issues since she was having problems before she even put in her password to login.

    the only software we're going to be installing is world of warcraft on the mac side
    and then vmware fusion, windows xp sp3 (i think i should install an some protection on this as well maybe?), and a game called solstice reborn on the XP vm.
  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian
    edited April 2011
    The XP SP3 should have some kind of AV, but if you are particularly careful (i.e. don't use IE), then there isn't that much to worry about. I also agree that none of those programs should have affected her caps lock. More likely: got stuck physically, and they pressed it a few times, which unstuck it.
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