Dell Media Buttons Not Working Properly

May 5, 2007 3:46 PM

I have a Dell Inspiron laptop, similar to this one. See those media control buttons on the front center part of the laptop? They've stopped working correctly. How can I fix them?

Here's what happens. Each press of a button counts as TWO presses. So, if I hit the mute button, it actually mutes AND unmutes the sound, leaving me back where I started. Same goes for volume: Each press of the button increases the volume by two increments rather than one. It's like, pressing the button IN counts as one press, and taking my finger off the button counts as another press. This is a brand new problem and has never happened before. I can't imagine what would be causing it to do this. Any ideas?

posted by soonertbone to computers & internet (3 comments total)

One option is to reinstall your chipset drivers... however, there's a good chance it's a motherboard problem, in which case I would call Dell (if you have a warranty) or find a replacement on ebay or something. I've seen buttons like that just stop working at all, and it's always been a mobo problem, though I've never seen your particular problem before.
posted by olinerd at 5:16 PM on May 5, 2007

Boot it to "safe mode" (hit F8 right when the bar indicating Windows is loading shows up on the bottom of the screen). Let everything load then reboot again normally. If that doesn't fix it it could be the chipset drivers like olinerd said. Those buttons might have their own drivers, or they might be tied to the "quickset" application driver. Either way, go to support.dell.com and input your service tag and look for updated drivers for these things. Also check if you have the latest BIOS. If none of that works and you call Dell (assuming you still are under warranty) make sure you tell them everything you did so they don't make you jump through too many hoops in helping you.
posted by Burhanistan at 6:17 PM on May 5, 2007

Do you have iTunes? If so, try bringing it to the foreground window. If your buttons now work you have a well known problem. I also had this problem and downgraded iTunes and installed the multi plugin to get it to work, although This guy seems to have a home made fix.
posted by telseth at 7:13 PM on May 5, 2007