certain keys not working on macbook

my friend is having trouble with her macbook. Out of the blue, a few keys just stopped working. The non-working keys seem to be grouped on the right side of the keyboard



At first I thought maybe she dropped some liquid on it (although she says she didn't), but then I noticed the apostrophe button DOES work, except it doesn't type an apostrophe anymore, it types a colon now.

I did a bit of searching, but couldn't find much help.

Since she stated she didn't spill liquid on it, we'll have to assume the failure is caused by something else. If her MacBook is under warranty or Apple care, have her take it on in to Apple. If it's not, there isn't much she can do except take it apart and check the keyboard connector and cable to the logic board. Replacing the keyboard probably should be done by someone who knows how (authorized Apple repair). If she's technically capable, she can do it herself. Parts and instructions can be found here.

ok weirdest thing happened...

I decided to see if it was a software problem, not hardware, so I booted the macbook off a live xubuntu cd. When it booted, the same keys did not work at first. Then out of frustration she pressed all the non-working buttons at once, and.. get this... they all magically started working.

Booted back into mac osx.. and everything worked fine! ???

Note that the keys I circled in the pic above were not working since a good two weeks ago and not even button mashing got them to work. Booted into a live linux cd, lightly pressed the non-working keys together and ... ta-daaa! works. I don't get it! This is the weirdest thing I ever encountered, especially with a mac.