Technical Help - Laptop Keyboard not working

The Phantom Eyebrow · September 13, 2007, 12:11:53 PM

Hey all, time for one of my frequent but irregular pleas for help. In short: my laptop keyboard is not working.

When I run a check through control panel it shows up as working fine.
I googled this problem and any help comes from various forums and it boils down to reinstalling my drivers or taking my computer apart to look for paper clips or some such. I am loathe to take the machine apart and I don't know much about drivers. When I ran the check it gave me the option to update my drivers but that did nothing.

So in summary - my computer seems to think my keyboard is working but no matter what key I press, nothing happens. Any help from the tehcnically savvy members of the boards here would be greatfully received!

zuludelta · September 13, 2007, 12:25:11 PM

What model laptop do you have?

If you have a Sony VAIO, try these steps for examining your laptop's innards and see if you can re-seat some connectors, it could just be a case of the connector being jogged loose, but is still in contact enough for the motherboard to detect it (thus, it still shows up as working properly in Device Manager).

Here's a site that has instructions for keyboard removal for IBM Thinkpad T-series models (remember that you don't actually want to remove the keyboard, just make sure all the connections are tight and in place).

The Phantom Eyebrow · September 13, 2007, 03:55:16 PM

Thanks for the quick response ZD! The computer is a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo pi 1536. I tried searching for similar advice online but no joy yet - I'll keep looking though.

You really think opening the laptop is the only solution here? Eep!

The Phantom Eyebrow · September 15, 2007, 03:01:45 AM

Okay, I didn't open the machine up or anything, but its working again now! :huh:

Don't know if this suggests a dodgy connection or anything, but for now I'm happy. ^_^

zuludelta · September 17, 2007, 05:40:16 PM

I included your laptop in my nightly prayers to the Tech Gods. They must have listened (sacrificing an old 3dfx card must have helped).

The Phantom Eyebrow · September 19, 2007, 10:27:37 AM

Good man ZD, your belief system may perplex and confuse me but I'm delighted with the results!

(You don't think this all suggests a dodgy connection that might flit in and out of working properly in future be any chance?)

Panther_Gunn · September 19, 2007, 01:03:37 PM

Did the laptop in question stay stationary during all this, or was it moved around quite a bit? Is it suffereng from shaken babe syndrome? How many reboots went on inbetween it not working, and it working again?

If it doesn't get jostled a lot, it's hard to imagine it being a connector issue (but could always still be.....stranger things...). I would be more inclined to believe it was a driver problem, somehow, either partialy corrupted, not loading at the proper time, or not loading at all. Does the laptop have an external keyboard (PS2) connector on the back? If it happens again, you could always try hooking up a keyboard that way, although it's not very convenient.

The Phantom Eyebrow · October 02, 2007, 04:25:25 PM

Gads, I forgot about this thread! The computer doesn't move around much PG and was stationary in the period between the time it was working, then stopped working and then went back to working again. I don't recall how many reboots were involved though, perhaps two or three.

There is a connector for an external keyboard all right but so far its working find since it came back to life. Thanks for the help though, your quesitons make me feel that another keyboard problem is in the post as it were, so I think I'll look into getting a spare keyboard as backup, just in case.