Hi Jdburchard,

Welcome to the Community. I suggest you reseat reseat keyboard cable. Use the below link for help. If this does not work, try connecting an external keyboard and check if these keys work, if it does then you will need to call Dell Technical Support in your region for a keyboard replacment.

support.dell.com/.../keyboard.htm

Hope this helps.

Thank you

Royan

Hi;

I have same problem here. I have Dell 1640 Studio XPS. I had spilled water the corner of my laptop and I got it checked and I was told it was a keyboard problem. I replaced the keyboard and used it 5 months and then the 2, w, s, x, and caps lock stopped working. I again replaced the keyboard; however, after two months now I am having same problem: same keys do not work. Several times I took apart the laptop and checked the keyboard connection. Interestingly they did work but for a while they stopped working again. Now none of them work. I do not know if the problem is because of the keyboard or motherboard. Do you have any idea about the problem? Should I replace the keyboard again?

I have the exact same problem!! (The F1 key has the same issue)

I can temporarily fix it by pressing all 5 keys at the same time and wiggling them, but it is starting to happen more and more frequently...

What can be done to fix this??

You can try to reseat the keyboard cable or try swapping with another known good keyboard from the same type of  system. For the person who spilled water in the system, you may have caused damage to the system board which is causing a gradual failure in the system board or a short across the board which is slowly killing the replacement keyboards.

A wee bit late to this thread and I wish I had answers.

I had my keyboard replaced 3 times over the last two years.  And the problem started again.  Same issue, 2, w, s, and x keys don't work.  They worked fine for awhile (in the last case about 45 days), but the issue always resurfaces.  I even had the motherboard replaced on the last tech call.  Hmm.  I have resiged myself to the fact that this issue simply can't be fixed, unless someone has any other ideas.  There must be a design flaw somewhere.

I also have had the same issue.  Same keys.  Keyboard had been replaced 3 times.  The last time the tech thought it could be a wiring issue.  Each time the fix only lasted a few weeks.  Now the computer is off warranty.  I was thinking of having someone look at the wiring, but is that actually going to work?