The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Inspiron 3721 Keyboard Replacement

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by blemert, Oct 14, 2013.

  1. blemert

    blemert Notebook Guru

    Reputations:
    1
    Messages:
    63
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Quick question, my wife has a 17" Inspiron - the 3721... and has broken two keys on her keyboard. I would like to order a replacement and ran across several on eBay that are for 17R models. They appear to be the same physically, but they offer backlighting. If I were to install one of these into her system, will the backlight work correctly? Has anyone ever done this modification? Thanks!
     
    blemert, Oct 14, 2013
    #1
  2. dave-p

    dave-p Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    730
    Messages:
    1,715
    Likes Received:
    10
    Trophy Points:
    56
    if your laptop model had the option for a backlit keyboard, than it can easily be upgraded.

    If you can get a close look at the connector for the ribbon cable from the main board to the keyboard and they are in fact the same then it should work.

    in most cases the cable from the keyboard to the main board are the same, the difference is there is an extra cable running from the circuit board on the under side of the keyboard for the backlit function.
     
    dave-p, Oct 18, 2013
    #2