one laptop key does not work

123Jim

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Oct 3, 2011, 4:01:30 AM10/3/11

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Hi all,
This laptop key all of a sudden does not work. All I get is a loud beep.
I should say this key has no plastic button and also no nipple, so I am
pressing the contact directly, but it was working fine in this condition.

What had I changed? I was making some changes to the hard disk (removing
a partition, expanding the windows partition)
I updated the computer with windows updates .. not much only one minor
update.

It seems unlikely that these changes would result in just one key
stopping working, particularly as it's the one with not plastic key and
no nipple (rubber boot?)

Why would a key beep and not work?

123Jim

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Oct 3, 2011, 5:18:20 AM10/3/11

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Additionally .. I observe the same behaviour even when I press the key
in Setup (BIOS) .. so it seems like a serious hardware (button) failure
.. A USB keyboard works fine.

but is there some trick I can try to persuade this button to work?

Grinder

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Oct 3, 2011, 1:29:49 PM10/3/11

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Oh for crap sake, just get a $20 replacement and be done with it.

123Jim

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Oct 3, 2011, 4:11:01 PM10/3/11

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lol .. Of course you have a point .. and earlier I did order a new
keyboard .. but I'm still puzzled why a key would work on minute and
then fail .. I suspect it objected to being poked by a human finger
rather than a rubber nipple.

Paul

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Oct 3, 2011, 9:34:22 PM10/3/11

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It shouldn't beep :-)

In the old days, <control>-g was the "bell" character, but I don't
know if you're somehow generating such a character and that is where
the noise is coming from. The input subsystem of Windows may also take
exception, to an overflow, but what are the odds that pressing the
remnants of that key, would generate that many characters ?

Paul

Don Phillipson

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Oct 6, 2011, 1:44:46 PM10/6/11

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"123Jim" <jnkjn...@uhnuhnunuhnuy.invalid> wrote in message
news:j6d4sl$f43$1...@dont-email.me...

> .. but I'm still puzzled why a key would work on minute and then fail ..

For things that fail sooner or later, this is normal.
You know your shoes will wear through sooner or
later: so on Sunday you know your shoes have
no holes and on Monday one has a hole. You
could not know last year whether the hole would
appear in the left or the right shoe, but you knew
either was going to wear through, and probably
one would wear through before the other. This
is no reason to feel puzzled.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

micky

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Oct 6, 2011, 2:17:23 PM10/6/11

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When I fixed tvs, etc. I got a lot of questions like this. Why did it
break *now*? Something that either wore out or the cause of the
problem was not visiible anyhow, so why did they think one could
predict when it would break.

123Jim

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Oct 7, 2011, 5:55:05 PM10/7/11

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There is always a scientific explanation .. even if it beyond current
technology, or the will to figure it out.

micky

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Nov 4, 2011, 3:58:04 PM11/4/11

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There is a scientific explanation of why it broke, but what I mean is
that other than sayintg it gradually wore out and it reached the
critical level now, there is no way to figure out Why Now. Why is
now different from any other time later or earlier. ?