My laptop keyboard is slowly dying. Help?
October 1, 2016 12:27 PM Subscribe
I've been using a laptop for a little over four years now (started Win7, is currently Win10; problems persisted throughout) and it has the strangest issues that have popped up over the years, which each on their own is a cute quirk, but all together is gradually making my computer unusable. Help?
About a year ago, my left arrow key stopped working. It slowly stopped registering key presses, and when it did press it would fire multiple signals at once, shooting my cursor two or three places to the left instead of just one. The down arrow key followed a couple months later. Attaching another keyboard shows that the arrow keys work fine on that one, and using the on-screen keyboard also works fine. I've inspected the keys, and they seem to be functioning fine, they just... don't work all the time.
The other, more serious problem only showed up a few weeks back.
Whenever I close my laptop and reopen it, there's a chance that my P key will stop working entirely. This is a problem for many reasons, the primary one being that my password has a P in it at some point. I could just make another password but I'd rather confirm the problem doesn't have a fix before going there.
The strange thing about this issue is that, while connecting another keyboard to type the P works fine, the onscreen keyboard doesn't work. Clicking on any key except P brings it up on the password bar, but clicking P just... doesn't make anything happen. Attempting the on-screen keyboard route has only worked twice, and both times it worked the first time I pressed the P key. Rebooting the computer tends to reset the P key to working.
I have no clue what set of circumstances may have caused this issue, and searching online didn't garner any results. Does anybody have any ideas?
About a year ago, my left arrow key stopped working. It slowly stopped registering key presses, and when it did press it would fire multiple signals at once, shooting my cursor two or three places to the left instead of just one. The down arrow key followed a couple months later. Attaching another keyboard shows that the arrow keys work fine on that one, and using the on-screen keyboard also works fine. I've inspected the keys, and they seem to be functioning fine, they just... don't work all the time.
The other, more serious problem only showed up a few weeks back.
Whenever I close my laptop and reopen it, there's a chance that my P key will stop working entirely. This is a problem for many reasons, the primary one being that my password has a P in it at some point. I could just make another password but I'd rather confirm the problem doesn't have a fix before going there.
The strange thing about this issue is that, while connecting another keyboard to type the P works fine, the onscreen keyboard doesn't work. Clicking on any key except P brings it up on the password bar, but clicking P just... doesn't make anything happen. Attempting the on-screen keyboard route has only worked twice, and both times it worked the first time I pressed the P key. Rebooting the computer tends to reset the P key to working.
I have no clue what set of circumstances may have caused this issue, and searching online didn't garner any results. Does anybody have any ideas?
Have you searched with the model of the laptop, to see if it's a known issue? The on screen keyboard thing is odd but if multiple keys aren't working and an external keyboard works, it just sounds like an old keyboard. Keyboard replacements are pretty simple, you might even be able to find step by step instructions to do it yourself.
posted by yeahlikethat at 12:49 PM on October 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by yeahlikethat at 12:49 PM on October 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
A four year old laptop will likely have dirty contacts in the keyboard department. That your issues seem to be on the right side of the keyboard points to maybe drinking coffee and eating crackers with your right hand while computing?
Start with the compressed air, but it could be necessary to remove the keycaps and take a toothbrush to the mechanical bits of the keyboard. This can be easy or difficult depending on which laptop you own. If none of this works, also depending on laptop, you should be able to replace just the keyboard fairly easily and for much cheaper than a new laptop.
posted by rhizome at 12:51 PM on October 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Start with the compressed air, but it could be necessary to remove the keycaps and take a toothbrush to the mechanical bits of the keyboard. This can be easy or difficult depending on which laptop you own. If none of this works, also depending on laptop, you should be able to replace just the keyboard fairly easily and for much cheaper than a new laptop.
posted by rhizome at 12:51 PM on October 1, 2016 [1 favorite]
Search the youtube videos for the exact model laptop, switching a keyboard is cheap and easy on some, insane or impossible on others. Watch at least three videos if available, each guy may have a bit of a different hint.
posted by sammyo at 12:52 PM on October 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 12:52 PM on October 1, 2016 [4 favorites]
Seconding what pretty much everyone else here has said; this is almost certainly a hardware problem. I'm not familiar enough with the low-level Windows stack to explain why a problem with the physical keyboard would be echoed on the on-screen keyboard, but I can say that I've seen behavior like that before.
If cleaning doesn't help, follow sammyo's advice and see if replacing the keyboard is doable for your laptop. I've done so on a couple of laptops, and if you have an easy model, it's no more than an hour or so.
posted by Ickster at 3:39 PM on October 1, 2016
If cleaning doesn't help, follow sammyo's advice and see if replacing the keyboard is doable for your laptop. I've done so on a couple of laptops, and if you have an easy model, it's no more than an hour or so.
posted by Ickster at 3:39 PM on October 1, 2016
Many laptop keyboards are of the 'membrane' type where contacts are on two surfaces and kept away from each other by a rubber dome.
If you type particularly 'hard' (like, you learned to type on mechanical typewriters and haven't been able to re-adapt, or have a particularly cheap keyboard and in extreme environments), the rubber wears out and you get the behaviours that you're seeing.
Only real solution is to replace the keyboard, but it's probably not worth it for your laptop.
Sometimes, if your keyboard is particularly dirty, you might see similar results. So if that's the case (like, you have cats and drink a lot of soda around the laptop), you can remove the keyboard and try to clean it with denatured alcohol/95% isopropyl alcohol. Dry it, and re-install it.
posted by porpoise at 7:42 PM on October 1, 2016
If you type particularly 'hard' (like, you learned to type on mechanical typewriters and haven't been able to re-adapt, or have a particularly cheap keyboard and in extreme environments), the rubber wears out and you get the behaviours that you're seeing.
Only real solution is to replace the keyboard, but it's probably not worth it for your laptop.
Sometimes, if your keyboard is particularly dirty, you might see similar results. So if that's the case (like, you have cats and drink a lot of soda around the laptop), you can remove the keyboard and try to clean it with denatured alcohol/95% isopropyl alcohol. Dry it, and re-install it.
posted by porpoise at 7:42 PM on October 1, 2016
Response by poster: Alright, I'm still having arrow key issues (haven't gotten around to cleaning it yet), but I was able to find a fix for the P-key issue: if I press alt-tab, the key starts working again! Computers are deep magic and I'm perfectly happy with my confusing solution.
posted by brecc at 1:46 PM on November 1, 2016
posted by brecc at 1:46 PM on November 1, 2016
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posted by theora55 at 12:44 PM on October 1, 2016