Problems with Dell Inspiron 1545

I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 1545. When I type, it will open windows (such as a find menu, replace menu, or even a new document) or reformat my text (hanging indents, etc.) out of the blue. It acts as if the control key is being pressed, but I am very careful not to hit it. At first we thought it was a sticky key, but replacing the keyboard did not fix the problem. We reinstalled all the drivers, ran diagnostics, etc., but none of it did any good. Dell support said they had never heard of this problem. Nothing they suggested helped. Finally we had them send us a replacement. The second computer arrived yesteday and it does the exact same thing. When I am typing in Microsoft Word, Excel or even Notepad, it erases text (sometimes the entire document), opens random windows, etc. What is going on? I can't believe that three keyboards in a row would be faulty, but the problem does not happen when I use a wireless keyboard. It has been less than a month since we ordered the computer originally. Is there anything that can be done or should I just return it and look elsewhere?

 

Try enabling Num Lock if it's not on, or disabling it if it is on.

It sounds weird, I know, but it solved a host of keyboard issues with my Studio 15.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but it doesn't seem to have a numbers lock key. (There's no separate numberpad.) Am I missing something?

 

mayb a virus?
or you have a friend who likes to mess with you using a usb joke thingy
try using an external keyboard.

the 1545 has a FN keypad if its activated some keys may do something.

 

When the problem started, which was immediately, the computer had not yet been on the internet, nor had we installed any new software on it (it came with Microsoft Office), so a virus is unlikely. We uninstalled everything anyway and reinstalled it, but still no luck. This has been an aggravating and strange problem. Once the computer even erased sixty pages of my document while I was typing. If it weren't for the undo feature, I'd have been cooked! (Or the computer would have been!)

Has anyone ever heard of this type of problem?

 

anyone solve this issue??? i just got my inspiron 1545 yesterday, and its doing the exact same thing !!!!

 

I have no advice but I just ordered a 1545 and I'll let you know if something weird is going on with mine when I get it.. now I'm a little scared... :/

 

me tooo!!!
maybe doing a fresh install?
my friends 1545 is ok and has no keyboard problems. and is a fresh Vista ultimate install ( not even oem)

 

I'm having these same problems, I guess I'll send it back and hope the new one doesn't have the same problem...

 

Well, I recently bought one for my girlfriend. It happened to me once but I reinstalled on the first day she had it, and she's not complaining at all. So I guess a clean install works. It's never done anything while I've worked on it after the clean install.

 

i think is something buggy on DELL OEM install.
another question. What grafix card you guys have?
maybe theres a defect the ATI ones

 

I had and am still having the same problems/ symptoms as everyone on here. I have a 1545 as well.... I thought it was just Ubuntu at first because I quickly installed that as soon as I got it and encounterd some crazy things. Even while typing this reply, while i was typing the blinking line would jump back between some stuff i already wrote. I type pretty fast too and if I look away while that happens all hell would break loose and that sucks. Also it jumped all the way to the bottom of this page and sumtimes certain keys will just stop working completely as if I spilled water or something on it. I got rid
of Ubuntu to see if that was the case but it wasn't. I've seen the mouse act erratic after logging into Vista Ultimate so honestly I'm clueless. I have to restart when 1 or 2 certain keys stop working because they never come back to life lol. Overall I still love this laptop because I didn't pay for it. It was a thoughtful gift and I'd even appreciate an older used laptop I was just checkin out this forum to see if there were any tips lol. I must say though, I use backtrack 3 linux more than Ultimate and when I do I never seem to have any issues with the keyboard or mouse. I'll keep checking for any new info and if I find a way to fix I'll let ya know. Take care all

 

I must confess I am suprised by this. I have had absolutely no problems at all with my Inspiron; and I've used it very extensively since buying it (8+ hours a day).

One thing I would say is that typing with the touchpad can be a pain, that makes things jump all over the place and is in my opinion over sensitive to start with; but this can be (and has been) adjusted with the alps touchpad software.

That does not sound like it is the problem.

I have the ATI card, so it's not that. Plus you would have hoped Dell might have spotted that when testing their configuration options.....well, you'd hope anyway.

I am stumped as to why this would happen, sorry I can't be of much help guys as so far (touch wood) I've not encountered these problems.

 

I am having the same problems with my 1545 keyboard and am going nuts! I bought the laptop back on 4/20/09 from Best Buy. Have taken it to the Geek Squad three times and they say there is no problem. Has anyone heard of a driver update or do I need to just trade it in?

 

no problem here just happend 1 time before fresh install but i tink it was like fragilexxx says touchpad oversensitive!!!
now im carefull typing and the keyboard isnt making any weird thing

 

But its not the touchpad its the keyboard? I tried playing with the touchpad settings and still happens. Its like OverOnNine its like the control key is being pressed constantly.

 

I never said it was....

That was what I said.

That was what my comment was in relation to.

In reference to this keyboard problem I'm afraid the comment I made earlier still stands:

 

I am also having this same problem. I can go a few days without any problems and suddenly it happens all the time. Have you solved your problem yet? I am on my second laptop and it does the exact same thing as the first on. I have spent endless hour on the phone with the dell techs from India and I am about to my wits end. Please someone help me solve this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

 

Hmmm I was thinking about getting the Inspiron...this thread has put me off now lol

 

I've had zero, I repeat zero, problems with the Inspiron. In fact it's a good little machine for what it cost. You are always going to get problems; but so far there have been no major problems with the machine - i.e. lots of people with same issue.

 

I still have the same problems sometimes, not enough to truly bother the sh#! out of me though.... I do get irritated after typing something and seeing that it jumped back between some things I already wrote. Other than that I use it a lot and it always gets the jobs I need done. I would buy another one if I had to without hesitating. It's cheap and works fine besides having a mind of it's own here and there. I agree there is no major problems but it can be annoying sometimes.

 

Hiya

I'm sorry, wasn't sure the best place to ask this! Am completely changing the subject. Just wondered if anyone knows whether the screen can be replaced if it has been cracked? It's the display, not the glass. Any help at all would be much appreciated! Thank you.

 

Yes, but replacing the display is pretty much one of the most awkward tasks to do. Displays can be found on eBay for pretty low prices, just search for 1545 display.

By the way, if you are going to change the subject of a thread just to suit your own needs, you really should make a thread of your own. Otherwise a moderator could tell you off. Likely they would just move it to it's own thread; but it's not nice to the original thread creator to hijack their thread.

 

I'm sorry-not that computer, or forum literate. Won't happen again! Thank you.

 

i second that statement !! the only problem i have is that my power light/led is dead, maybe from front collision when it was in the bag.

reinstall windows and install just the drivers you need. maybe it will help

 

Hi all. I purchased the same Inspiron laptop back in March and have had the same problems with the keyboard. I have been through HELL with this computer and trying to get it fixed has been worse. I have probably been on the phone and online with Dell representatives for over 15 hours to get this problem correctly diagnosed and fixed. I have received a new keyboard and a new hard drive. I have sent it in to be "fixed" when the keyboard was replaced yet again, along with the motherboard. The problem still persisted. The computer has been its original factory settings, which entailed deleting everything on my computer. The problem still persisted. This was quite an annoyance.

I'm not sure if it is the same for everyone else, but the problem cannot be replicated on-command and doesn't occur 100% of the time. So, when the last Dell rep I was working with logged onto my computer remotely from India [side note: did you know you have to pay extra to speak with a North American, native English-speaker????!?] the problem did not occur and he therefore determined it had been fixed [come on, the hard drive doesn't have anything to do with the keyboard problem!].

I should have tried this much earlier--as in back in April--but I disabled the keypad completely and the problem seems to have gone away. Has anyone else tried this? It is obviously less than ideal, and I will probably still keep contacting them to get it fixed, but it will do for now.

I have never been so disappointed with ANYTHING I have ever purchased. Along with the keyboard issue, the power cord was also dysfunctional. I am also disappointed with the customer/technical service, as they did not [until recently, at least] have me work with just one technician--so I felt like I was going around in circles every time I spoke with a new rep. Also, I think the technical support center was getting so tired of me contacting them that I was hung up on once.

All in all, like everyone else on this board, I'm sure, I JUST WANT A FUNCTIONAL COMPUTER!!!!!

Thoughts?

 

I have the same problem where the control key is randomly being pressed when I do not press it, opening up random Ctrl-X tasks, making typing virtually impossible. Anyone have a solution to thisÉ I have a Dell 1545 Inspiron.

 

Your problem mirrors mine completely. They are now sending me my third one. What is your current status?

 

For OverNine -- your problems soud exactly like mine. I bought a Dell Inspiron 1545 back in March from the Dell Online website. I received it and had immediate problems with typing text. However, I had work to complete so thinking it was a Vista problem (my first Vista experience) I set it aside for two weeks until I had time to do the tutorial. When the auto text editing continued I called a tech friend and we worked trying to get it fixed, no avail.

So I called Dell Customer Support and that began a two month nightmare experience with them. I have spent (literally) over a week's worth of work time on line/on phone with them, 14 hours on DellConnect with their technicians working on my machine from wherever, and had promises made for call backs by supervisors or people who could make a REAL decision what to do at least four times with designated hours given to them to call. NO ONE HAS EVER CALLED BACK!

In all the time we have done virus, malware and adware checks with software they sent me via on line downloads, they replace the keyboard via a local technician, the harddrive via another local technician, we have done complete system restore, I have done typing exercises with them, and finally they conceded and sent me a new 1545 as a replacement.

I took it out of the box and went straightway to Notepad, I didn't go on line, transfer any files, load and disks; I simply started the machine and went to Accessories and Notepad; AND THE ROTTEN NEW MACHINE DOES THE SAME THING. It does all kinds of text editing without being commanded to do so in Notepad, Wordpad, MS Word, while typing e-mails in AOL, and even while I have been typing with message.

So I now had two new 1545s and neither works correctly and once again waiting for another Dell person to call. They haven't and it is 24 hours after their promise deadline.

I have not recourse, I have no idae what to do.

Eric

 

Raise the issue again; it's all you can do.

I've not had the problem at all. In fact, the only issues I've had have been very recently, with a spattering of dead pixels appearing (about 10 of them in 2 days), and my blu-ray player refusing to accept disks. One live chat with a tech support person and about 30 minutes of time and they are sending someone with a new drive and a new display. They even let me upgrade to the 1600x900 display and pay the cost price for the upgrade.

so there are good people at Dell, and there are good machines. It seems very bad luck that you would happen to have both bad people and bad machines.

Hope it gets sorted soon!

 

I'm not sure if you ever got a resolution regarding your keyboard, but I thought I would respond anyway. I bought my laptop in Feb of this year and had the same issues. After dealing with Dell for longer than I wanted to, I found a thread on their website that helped me and seems to fix the issue. Here is the exact posting...


awjordan
Joined on 07/18/2009
Posts: 3
Points 60
Re: Systemic problem with internal keyboard on Inspiron 1545
19 Jul 2009 03:31PM

I found an older thread shortly after posting this (while waiting for tech support) that solved the problem. Apparently, the default settings on the touchpad include a zoom in/out function accessed by touching the extreme left side of the touchpad. Because doing this also functions as a control key press (holding ctrl and scrolling with a mouse will have the same effect), brushing your hand against the pad while typing makes the control key fire randomly. Just access options for the touch pad (it should have an icon in the taskbar) and turn off the zoom function. It's worked for me so far. I'm just angry that tech-support was unable to provide the same solution before I went through the trouble of replacing a computer that was not at all defective, especially because this seems to be a problem lots of people are having.

On a side note.... FRAGILEXX, If you have nothing to offer as far as help, it would be nice if you had just said what you had to say and left it at that. As a new user of this forum, to see multiple posts from you offering nothing but an attitude turns me off completely. Wasted time reading through your bs. Get a life!

All who had issues with your keyboard, good luck and I hope this post helps you. It has for me.

 

The guy is offering free help to the best of his ability on a public forum, and has no obligation to you. Take the help that he offers for free and at the expense of his own time, or leave it. And I'm sure that if there were anything really wrong with the content of his posts, the ever-watchful moderation team would have taken care of it by now.

Also, anyone else seeing the irony of a new member whining about a long-standing well respected member such as Fragilexx, and telling him to "get a life"?

On topic, I am curious to see how disabling the touchpad zoom function works with correcting these keyboard errors. For the record, I've had the zoom function enabled on my Studio 1535 and 1555, with no keyboard issues to speak of.

 

Mastershroom, thanks for sticking up for me!

Jolismom, I appreciate you are trying to help, as do many others on these forums, but let us not start fighting with one another. I have been able to help a great many people on these forums, so I must be doing something right. However, if you do not like my posts, you do have the option of not reading them - it does have my name & avatar to the left hand side before you read a single word of my post.

As for the information you provided; if you look at the first post I made in this thread, I tried to suggest to people that it could be an over-sensitive touchpad. OK, the person I was replying to, I still think their specific issue was more than just an over-sensitive touchpad, but I don't think that is the case for most people.
This has been confirmed by one person later in the thread whom has disabled their touchpad and noticed no further problems.

 

Hi Fragile. My keyboard was replaced twice, the motherboard once, and power supply once. Of course Dell claims the laptop can't be replaced or switched for a different as the "time has passed" - despite the fact that it is their incompetence that made that happen so I don't think a court of law would see it their way at all if pushed. In desperation I tried Linux and of course the same problems happend there and now I have Win7 Beta on it which has no zoom function built in for the trackpad and I still have the same problem. I've got only 2 options left as I see it - sue Dell or use an external keyboard and make a desktop computer out of it.

 

Does the laptop work at the moment? I mean if it does then Dell has fulfilled their commitment and I'm afraid that you wont really get anywhere with reference to taking them to court.

Also, how old is the laptop? What warranties did you buy with it?

 

that depends on your definition of "work" - when you consider the keyboard issues no it was and it is still in warranty period. That being said however I think I have it fixed. I downloaded the 64bit Vista touchpad driver I was then able to go into touchpad settings and disable the zoom settings you mentioned earlier. It has been working fine since then! Win7 beta simply did not have a setting to disable the zoom. Like others have said - why the he double hocky sticks tech support and the techs who physically had the pc twice didn't know to try that or think of it is anybodies guess. I am just glad when it comes to desktops I build my own 'cuz I'll never buy another Dell now.

 

***********

Thank you for the information, however, turning off the zoom has not fixed my Dell 1545. I also tried turning of the multimedia keys as someone else suggested. It is still doing the Mad Hatter thing of changing text and editing text randomly. It is so bad I am typing this on my 5 year old HP Pavilion. It seems from reading the input here, this is not a every machine problem and it doesn't happen with every push of certain keys. However, mine is bad enough I cannot type much more than paragraph in any program or e-mail system.

My last hope is to turn of the touchpad altogether and use an external mouse. After that I am giving up. I will try to find a local tech shop that will take these two worthless Dells machines in for trade in for another machine that works. It is a shame as it is a nice fast machine for internet surfing, except for the text problem with occurs even there when I type anything.

I'm off Dell computers for life now. It is not just this machine, as bad models do occur. It is their utter lack of concern that I do not have a product I can use as advertised. I have two worthless machines for the price of one. Add to that the worst service experience of my life and the insistence that this has never happened before with this model (which this line itself is a testimony against that lie); put together the whole Dell experience has been a horror. I should not have let it upset me as much as it has. But, this is SO FRUSTRATING being treated like an imbecile by their people. NO MORE PERSONAL OR FIRM business from this customer.

Thanks for your help. It has been a real help to find others having the same problem. I won't be back on this thread again, unless my final straw solution helps or Dell actually makes good on their broken promises. I have a sneaking suspicion they are simply waiting until the one year parts warranty runs out this coming March. Perhaps they had or have a rogue assembly worker messing with us all; whatever, they don't seemed interested in fixing it.

 

I have similar problems on the same machine, about 2 months old. shortly after I got it I did a clean install with XP Pro and reinstalled the drivers so I doubt it's a software issue. on my machine I also have a problem with the CTRL key not engaging--the left CTRL key, anyway, needs to be depressed really hard in order to work. (this doesn't happen with the right CTRL key.) so I wonder if there's a hardware defect with the keyboard that both makes the CTRL engage randomly and not engage when depressed? I'd be surprised if the two problems were unrelated.

incidentally I disabled the touchpad zoom feature from the start and that didn't make a difference. but the touchpad is in a very awkward place on this machine; it's right where the base of the left thumb rests if you type properly. supposedly "touchcheck" guards against this but enabled or disabled I still have the problem. but I don't know why the touchpad would engage the CTRL key from accidental contact anyway.

I've had Dells before and generally been satisfied with the hardware and the service, so I'd be surprised if there was a known systemic issue that they were not trying to fix.

 

Well I disabled the touchpad zoom feature and the scrolling features. That didn't solve the problem, so I disabled the whole Touchpad. That seems to have solved the text editing problems; but I will hold my breath since it is an intermittent thing anyway.

The problem now is: everytime I shut the machine off and it reboots, it reboots the touchpad into operation. When I go back to DISABLE it again, it is already DISABLED. So I have to ENABLE it and then DISABLE it again. Now, one of the machines has begun to shut down WINDOWS involuntarily with some kind of error report.

Both these machines are trash; and the company still has not contacted me about this whole matter as they promised. I have called them over a dozen times and had specific appointment times for them to call back when I waited for THEIR decisionto call. Still no contact. I'm buying something else and will use the Dells for searches and playing around. They are worthless for my line of work.

 

Thank god for this forum! I was going nuts with my Inspiron 1545 and the first post in this thread could have been written by me. We had the same exact experience.

Dell initially did a complete system reinstall or whatever you call it when they wipe everything off your computer. During those calls I had to fight just to get them to do that because they insisted it was a software issue and wanted me to pay for support from that department. I refused because the laptop came with this problem and asking me to pay to fix it is just wrong.

The system install did not work, so they sent me a new keyboard. I installed the keyboard and that didn't make a difference.

Then they sent me a new laptop and it did the same thing.

I had given up on trying to fix the problem, because it's a huge timesuck and very frustrating. I decided just to live with it. Then tonight it was really bothering me so I googled "dell inspiron 1545 problems" and came across this thread.

I called dell and told them that I know they know there's a problem because there are others!! They finally admitted to me that there is a known problem with the Dell Inspiron 1545 and they have known about it since it came out. They updated the touchpad driver and we will see if that helps matters. I showed dell support the post in this thread that is cut and pasted from the dell forum (the one with red and green text). She said once the drivers are updated, changing the touchpad settings will not be necessary. For some reason I did not have the option to change my touchpad settings as suggested in the post. That is why I had to call dell tonight- to find out how to change the settings.

Anyways...The employee ID number of the supervisor I spoke to after speaking to support was 199587. He said " This is a known problem with the Dell Inspiron 1545 touchpad." When I asked him why they didn't acknowledge that in my previous phone calls, he said he did not know. He also insisted that updating the touchpad driver will fix the problem.

So far it seems to be better. In typing this post a new tab only opened once, so I have disabled the zoom function and nothing has happened since.

I think there is a problem with the touchpad drivers which is exacerbated by the zoom function. That's why some people are having problems and some are not and some are finding that disabling the zoom function helps and some are not.

If you are having this problem, first call dell and tell them to update the drivers for your touchpad, or I think you can do it yourself on their site. Then disable the zoom function in control panel-->mouse-->touchpad-->scrolling and zoom settings--> uncheck "enable zoom".

I will update in a couple days and let you know if it really is fixed. I've never been able to type this much without a problem, so I am optimistic!

Thank you to all those who posted valuable information in this thread.

 

It's been over a week since the driver update and disabling the zoom feature in touchpad settings. I've had no problems at all since. Good luck fellow Inspiron 1545 owners!

 

I found that the zoom option was a pain and everytime I came across a Dell that had this option in the touchpad properties I would disable it.

 

I know this is late but I have an Inspiron 1545 with XP Pro. I have the same issue and have tried everything. Updateing drivers ETC. Disableing the zoom worked. You posters using Ubuntu there must be a way to disable the zoom in the properties of the driver/software. I just disabed the zoom. I typed this message without the curser jumping up or skipping. So right now it seems to have fixed it. And as for Dell support. If you get the right person they will help you and they have called me back. Never have they failed to call me back when they promised.

 

Thank you so much for posting the zoom related solution!

I was about to return my computer to Best Buy because I determined all the new tabs, hanging indents, etc being opened were untenable. Unlike many of you, I never contacted Dell about the issue. It pains me to hear your stories...

 

wrong post

 

wrong place to post AGAIN

 

I find the thread post and it appears at a dif thread. wow i created an account for nothing

 

I have tried and tried to find the place to disable the zoom. If I go to control panel I can find mouse, then get to touchpad, but there isn't anything in there regarding the zoom. I have tried to look up a new driver, it says mine is up to date.

This is my daughters computer and she hunts and pecks and therefore it doesn't bother her, but my hp crashed and I am waiting to get a new one and I am using this one. It makes me insane!!!!

I am pretty low-tech, so work with me!!

Please help!!!
J

 

OK, so I have the same problem with my Inspiron 1545 with the whole ctrl button issue (it acts like it's continually pressed). From other suggestions I have tried the update driver and turn off the zoom on the touch-pad fix and disabling the touchpad. I tried all the suggestions.

Here is where I think it gets weird. I plugged in a external USB keyboard to the laptop to see if that worked and it did (after a minute of me playing with the keys). So I figured it was a problem with the laptop keyboard. BUT with the USB keyboard still plugged in, I tried the laptop keyboard and it worked?! The I unplugged the USB keyboard and the laptop keyboard still worked.

I then restarted the laptop and again had the same problem with the keyboard. Plug in the USB keyboard and it worked again.

So, now I am thinking it is software related, but I can't figure out what. Any suggestions?

Ps..I'm using Windows 7 home premium.

*edit - I installed Ubuntu on the laptop (running from the CD) and the keyboard works. Now to find the solution for windows 7. Like I mentioned, I already updated to the latest drivers from Dell support so I am stumped.