Dell Studio XPS 1640 - Some Keys Not Working

Hello there,

Recently a few of the keys on my laptop stopped working altogether. To the best of my knowledge it was closed for a few days and out of nowhere, the 't', 'e', 's', and 1 to 5 keys stopped working.

I tried the virtual keyboard and a USB keyboard, they both worked fine. Is this simply a sign of the keyboard itself dying out or having something gone wrong with it? Or is there more to the problem than I understand?

I'm leaning towards buying another keyboard for it because it IS only 25 dollars, but I was curious if anyone had any insight on the issue before I did this.

Thanks!