My Left Ctrl key broke--What should I do?

It's comlepety gone, and all that's left is a little hollow plastic mound. I can still press on it and use it, but I wonder how I can replace it.

 

You should be able to reattach it. I lost mine earier when I dropped the keyboard. It should attach baring anything actually broke. If something did infact break call dell and they will send out a new keyboard or have a tech come out and install a new key or keyboard. If your outta warranty then it's time to hit ebay in search of a new keyboard. I don't know if you can get an individual key.

 

Not to spam the thread, but this guy is selling just the keys:

Alienware Area 51 M17X-R1 Laptop Keyboard Key - eBay (item 300439820626 end time Aug-20-10 22:16:33 PDT)

He has good feedback, and does a lot of volume,

or the whole enchilada:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-Alienware-...77499251?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0#ht_2810wt_1133

May help in a pinch.

 

Great stuff! I've been having a relatively similar problem. My "D" key always get out of place after 4 or 5 times of pressing, I always have to put it back to its place and push it.

Some questions though, on the page of the first seller I didn't find the option to specify the letter of the key u wanted. U only select the model of the key.

The second page u provided have full keyboards, do they include the bottom components of the keyboard? the hinge and cup?

 

If you're still under warranty, call Dell and they'll send out a new keyboard. They have you put your old keyboard in the box and send it back. At least that's the way it went for me about a year ago. That way there's no downtime.

 

Thank you for all the wonderful replies.

My warranty ended a week ago, unfortunately, so I'll buy from eBay. The question is, how can I put the key back into its place? There are these little metal loops around the plastic mound thing that has me befuddled. Is there a guide somewhere?

 

Tamashii,

See this:

Alienware Area 51 M17X-R1

He has how to determine your hinge type, and how to specify which keys you need.

He also has an 800 number to ask him questions directly.

As for the second listing, the keyboard is complete. It is simply a matter of removing the old one, and installing the replacement.

Here is the link for the service guide

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/m17x/en/index.html

A keyboard replacement seems pretty straightforward.

Good Luck.

 

Should I choose large hinge? I mean, yeah, the left CTRL key is larger than the regular letter keys, but not as large as, say, the enter key or the space bar.

 

on my older M17, my left CTRL, Fn and Z keys have all broken off with the key's hinging completely broken. A bit of work with some tape and they're back on there. Only issue is it's slightly sticky (I never liked to use left CTRL in games anyway) and obviously not exactly aesthetically pleasing.

If you can't reattach the key, you could use some flexible thin clear tape to 'attach' the key to the keys surrounding it. But like I've said, it doesn't exactly look nice. I suppose it'd be better if you could somehow manage to obscure the tape but I don't see that being easy.

 

Evil,

+1 for the Frugal approach