Studio 17 Keyboard problem (solved already)

WOWZA!!!! This is truly amazing and such a life saver!!!  I have only had my Studio 17 for a little over a month so when the media control keys decided to stop working I was rather irritated.  Naturlally, I went to Dell for support because it is obviously still under warranty and let the technician person "take control" of my computer.  They tried installing an update (again, only a month old - clearly not outdated!).  When that didn't work they tried several other things and finally wanted me to send my computer away.  Well, I'm a law student and with mid-terms and the need to take serious notes in class that really wasn't practical so I began searching around on here for things to try.  After doing several suggestions that said to remove the control cover and other disassemblings I came upon this and decided what the heck!  I'd tried numerous other (and more difficult and tedious) things - now I'm wishing I had found this one 1st!!!!!  Such a time saver!!!  How is it even possible that these so called "professionals" don't know about simple solutions like this?!?!?!?!  RIDICULOUS is what!

Hi,

Thankyou so much for posting this, I opened my laptop this morning to finish 1 of 3 uni assignments due during the week and what do i find, a non responsive keyboard. I tried everything, found this little post and bingo it worked.

Thanks again mate.

Ryan

Bricorn, thank you! I had this problem on my Dell Studio laptop which is 8 months old. Turned it on and found none of the keys worked. I couldn't sign in with my password. However, I found that I could bring up the on-screen keepboard using the Accessability tab on the left of the log-in screen using Vista. There was no help from Dell and I had almost given up when I Googled the problem and you popped up in my search.

So, slightly hesitant it would work, I disconnected my USB mouse and power cord, removed the battery, held the power button down for 10 seconds and then left it for a minute or two. I then put the battery back in and powered up and hey-presto - I can now type again!

Thanks for sharing this. I've had other issues with my Dell Studio, so that's it for me. No more Dell's from now on.

Cheers, Steve

Thank you for posting this, you've made it to the top of google for "dell studio keyboard stopped working" which means I got mine working again about 20 mins after it stopped!

I have a 3 month old studio 1555 and in the middle of using it, the entire keyboard went dead. No keys worked whatsoever. After a couple of reboots which didn't fix anything, I used the windows onscreen keyboard to log in and search google. Followed the steps in the OP exactly and hey presto! Working keyboard!

Just out of interest, did anyone notice their laptop was quite hot when it stopped working? Mine was.

Hey ! Thank you so much for this ! I didn't have a clue what it was ! Tried rebooting my laptop and everything today ! I have a studio 1535....and got exactly the same problem ! Now it's fixed !

Thanks Again !

Chris :emotion-2:

Bricorn,

Awesome fix! I was searching for the procedure to open my laptop and reseat the keyboard connection when I happened upon your post. I recently picked up this laptop on clearance from a return sale. The battery was dead and the keyboard did not respond. I figured I'd try to drain the flea power before getting too crazy and BAM!

Thanks!

I had this same problem. I'm a little upset that this is listed as a solved problem. I don't think that pulling power to fix it is a real fix. Time to call and yell at dell some more.

Hi, I fixed this - pretty much by accident - but couldn't find it mentioned in any online help, so I thought I'd post this in case it helps someone else. First the symptoms; I was having keyboard problems; Some keys needed pressing several times and even then were problematical.  The worst culprits were in a circle i-o-l-m-n-h-u, but it spread wider sometimes and sometimes was almost normal.  What REALLY didn't help was that most of my logon password is in that circle :(  Oh, and the arrow keys were working on a single press basis, holding them down did nothing. Now it gets stranger; clicking onto the guest account, randomly typing in notepad, then coming back out and into my own account mostly cleared the problem for a while.  It SEEMED like hardware mainly, but sometimes like software.  I was abroad at the time so I was trying to put up with it until I got home and could call the help desk without needing a mortgage! Anyway, on the day that I got home, the touchpad completely gave up, completely unresponsive.  I'm getting annoyed by this time - the laptop is only 4 months old.  I checked the website again and found something for the touchpad - drain the "flea power" (whatever that is).  Did that and lo and behold, the keyboard was fixed.  Go figure. So, if anyone has similar problems, try draining the flea power - power down the laptop, disconnect everything, remove the battery, press and hold the power button for at least 5 seconds, then put it all back together and power it up. I hope that this helps someone.

Thanks for posting this, I had no idea what to try first. After a quick google search I found your post and I am now typing on my keyboard which had previously completely given up!

Thanks again.

:emotion-2::emotion-11:......Hi i had a the same problem with my studio 1735, 12 months old,.i followed these instructions ( draining the flea power - power down the laptop, disconnect everything, remove the battery, press and hold the power button for at least 5 seconds, then put it all back together and power it up.) it worked, need i say more .thank you a regards  Mick

hi, I have a dell inspiron E1505. and its keyboard and touch pad stops working all of sudden. Now its like I have to press the same botton too many time to get it work.  I tried replacing the keyboard and also the way u said like turning off the power, taking off batter , pressing power button, everything. Still its not working. So do u knw any ways I can fix it.?

thanks.

Thank you so much!!!  We have a fairly new Studio 17 and the keyboard just totally stopped working.  We could use the touch pad but couldn't type anything, letters nor numbers.  I was in the midst of calling Dell for help when I came across your email.  So as I talked to Dell, my wife shut down the computer and took out the battery for a minute.  Put it back in and it works great.  Thank you for the valuable time saving advice (frustration saving too - I was starting to get cranky).

Thank you thank you thank you! This is one of those weird problems apparently that a bunch of people had but there is no real solution from Dell. God bless the internet. I had just copied everything off my external drive and wiped it, organized all my files on the laptop and was about to transfer them back over to backup and then my keyboard just quit. I thought I was toast!

Wicked save man -

R

I can't believe it, but this actually works!  Thanks for posting such an easy and straightforward fix.

This did work at first, but no longer does for mine!  Has anyone else had this "fix" no longer work for them and found any ways to solve.  It's my Enter, Forward slash, and backspace keys.  Please let me know if you know of a way to fix it.  I've tried both draining the flea power and restarting with both the battery in and with out it.   Thanks!