non-functioning keyboard

Hi all,

I have an HP pavilion dv2000, and this morning, when my brother used it, the keyboard worked fine. He left the computer on, went out, then came back home. When he did, the "g", "h", backspace and quotation (' and ") key stopped working. After a little bit, some other keys stopped working, but now they work fine. It's been up and down as to which keys work and don't work, but the four keys "g" "h" backspace and quotation keys still do not work. Whenever I use the on-screen keyboard, these same 4 keys do not work even when pressing them on screen.

I don't think I've ever spilled anything major on the keyboard...i've used rubbing alcohol to clean it when the computer is off/battery is removed/unplugged. I removed the G and H keys, and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

What I find weird is how the onscreen keyboard doesn't even work (for these four keys)...is that normal if a keyboard stops functioning? I would simply conclude that the keyboard itself is broken, but the fact that the on screen keyboard doesn't makes me wonder...also since nothing happened to the keyboard in the past little while...

I tried system restore (did not work), and I will try to update the driver and then do a clean install...is there anything else i can try that might help? Any ideas as to what this could be?

Thanks for your help in advance!

 

System Restore sounds like a good idea to me. If the on screen keyboard functioned as normal, I might suspect something of the cable, but that is very strange.

 

sorry...forgot to mention, system restore did not work. The on screen keyboard didn't function properly...but now it does for some reason.

it's been all over the place =S

 

And the keyboard is still messed up?

 

yep...now it seems as if they keyboard is just broken. But still...the fact that it's really been up and down...just doesn't seem right. I just don't want to spend the money on a keyboard just to find that doesn't work either.

Outside of a driver update, clean install/reformat, and a new keyboard, is there anything else that this could be? Either way I will try those three (in that order) first and see what happens.

 

Problem is probably located in the connector for the band cable from keyboard to mainboard.

Google the keys, it's not an uncommon problem.

 

Reseat the ZIF cable for your keyboard. Most likely, it became loose and lost some connection.

 

Fintan, you said google the keys? What do you mean?

jackluo, I actually removed the keyboard and plugged it back in a few times, and it didn't really do anything.

From the sounds of it now, they keyboard is just broken...but...IS it broken? I mean it worked fine that morning, came back 3 hours later, and four keys didn't work...why would it do that?

 

Like this http://www.google.nl/search?rlz=1C1SVEA_enNL350NL350&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=keyboard+g+h+backspace

Replacing the keyboard does often not help
If your computer's warranty has expired, you might want to ask a compentent person (well, ok: VERY competent) to put a new connector on the mainboard. Apparently they are fragile.

 

VERY. Fragile.