CF-28 BIOS trouble?

I recently got a cf-28 MK III on ebay and as is common it has no HHD. Got a wiped used one and put it in, all excited and ready to load XP Pro. Turn it on and hit F2 and BIOS comes on but my enter and navigation keys don't work. Needless to say this makes it difficult to set my boot order and so I can't load XP Pro. As a test I pull the HHD and caddy from another cf-28 MK III and put it in this machine. Turn it on and windows loads just fine and ALL the keys are working. Restart and hit F2, BIOS comes up and still no function on enter and navigation keys. Try F8 and that menu comes up and arrow keys work but not the enter key. Bad BIOS? Please help.

 

Try an external keyboard.

 

Hard drive error or operator error...

Just my .02

Try nuking the drive and start over... Try swapping drives and start over...

 

Check your keyboard ribbon cable connections.
This happened to me once and re inserting the ribbon cables fixed it.

 

External keyboard makes no difference. Exactly the same conditions.

 

Here is a post about the same issue..

http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/380365-cf-28-keyboard-problem.html

Pull the keyboard out and re install it.

Try the hdd and caddy from the "broken" cf28 in the working one.

Pull cmos battery / regular battery / unplug AC to reset bios to defaults.

Maybe try a bios flash??

 

I have completely wiped the drive but still the same. When I put the drive from a known good CF-28, the drive works fine but still the problems with enter and arrow keys before windows loads. After XP is up everything is fine. Checked the ribbon cable. It appears O K. But I would think if that were the fault it would be consistent regardless of what screen or program was running. Operator error is always a possibility but from boot to F2 to BIOS screen limits the steps I can screw up. I did swap drive and caddies between the good and bad cf-28' before the nuke. Made no difference in regards to my problem.

 

I would love to try the BIOS flash. Could someone link me to the proper procedure? I have never done that.

Thanks

 

I am guessing that once windoze boots, it takes over the keyboard control. Until windoze boots the bios and keyboard controller chip run the keyboard. Did you pull the ribbon cable out and re insert it?

Here is a post about the same issue.At least you are not alone .

http://forum.notebookreview.com/panasonic/380365-cf-28-keyboard-problem.html

 

I think this page has the bios flash. It should include instructions.

Panasonic Mobile Computer Bios, EC, and Utilities Downloads

The first one under the cf28 heading. cf28S ....

 

A little advice since you have never done this before...if the bios flash goes wrong you might end up with a nice door stop .I have seen this happen many times.

 

Yes... Make SURE your laptop is plugged in when you do a BIOS flash. Don't worry about it taking a long time to boot up after the flash... It is normal. You will need to go into the BIOS after and reset the date and time.

Do you have the correct date and time in the laptop now? Just curious...

 

I will double check the keyboard ribbon connector. Then work on the bios flash. The Date/Time are not correct, but I did disconnect the CMOS battery to get rid of the bios password box. This was not originally showing but appeared after I had been ignorantly messing around with anything that might work. The thing with the enter and arrow keys was there before that.

 

Check also the keyboard ribbon itself. It maybe rip off of one to two line circuit.


ohlip