CF-28 Keyboard backlite wont go off

Fellas

I just noticed last night that for some odd reason the keyboard backlite on my cf28 wont go out. The pc was shut down the normal way, and was not in standby mode or anything like that. In order to get the backlite to go off I have to remove the battery, when i put the battery back in I can see the f-11 key light up, I tryied closing the lid as much as I could to see if the light goes out but as far as I can see the backlight remains on. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Sounds like a defect somewhere. If you still have warranty you should call Panasonic about it. I don't have a lot of experience with backlite but I think this is a technical problem and not software related.

 

Hmmmm... What type of keyboard do you have? Is it the rubber type or the hard plastic? Is your 28 equipped with a sensor?

Give us the Low Down!

 

TB
I am using the kb that you sent me a wile back it is the cop-proof backlit membrane type. I am not sure if it has a sensor, would the sensor be on the left side of the rim about 2" to the left of the latch?

 

Yeah... The sensor is above the F4 key on the 28.
I'm not sure why it would stay lit.

I'd check the BIOS. (But I'm not sure for what) Just look around. You also may want to reseat the keyboard connections. If you have the sensor you might try taking it out to see if tht works.

Also... Are you sure it's actually on? I think some of those keyboards used a phosphorescent type covering so they would glow a little. (I might be wrong on that.) So it would look like it's on when it isn't. I can't imagine the keyboard is bad since it gets the signal to turn on from the laptop.

Play around with the connections.

Also..Are you seeing this when it is off by the switch or just closed? If just closed make sure that you have hibernation enabled on the power options in control panel.

 

tb

well i checked the sensor on the bezel and it seems to work in that, I had the pc in a dark room and shined a light onto the sensor and it dimmed the screne as if it was in bright sunlight, the keyboard however stayed lit. I am sure that the keys are not posphoressing because when i remove the battery the backlight goes off. I will check the connections once more.

 

I have the rubber backlit keyboard, and it is always on. I think that is the way it is supposed to be. I can dim it (3 settings) but cannot turn it off. Im guessing its designed that way.

 

Haha, right, warranty... That's funny.

I think most, if not all CF-28's have been out of warranty for 3 years now.

radiogeek; Is it just the F11 key or all of them? I misunderstood.

Reason I ask, is my F11 key comes on first before any others do... so figure it might have something to do with your problem.

 

it actually is the f11 key! the reason i noticeed it is because it glows red. But its on all the time pc on or off i can only shut it off by removing the batt.

 

Well, I don't have an answer, but it makes more sense and could be a lot more things now.

Could be as simple as something being grounded out, or something providing voltage to the wrong thing.

 

That could be a 'feature'. I just checked my 28, and the keys on it are always lit, but the F11 is more obvious because it is red.

Isn't F11 the emergency call key? I know on an old XLComputers hard case laptop I've got, the F11 is different like that.

 

I know in some depts they utilize the f11 as an emerg key. My main concern is battery life, the battery seems to drain because of this. the pc may have been like this all allong or it could be the result of me taking it appart to do all the mods.

 

It should not be staying on after you shutdown the computer under any circumstance. Is the keyboard the kind with two cables or three? Also the sensor on the LCD bezel has nothing to do with the keyboard it only controls the LCD backlite.

 

Radiogeek -

The F11 is the emergency call button used in some police departments; that is why it glows red. (see here)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=171698&page=6

I've inspected my TB with the rubber KB; the F11 key illuminates the very first thing when I turn the laptop on; then when it finishes its POST, the rest of the keys light up. My guess would be that perhaps you have the Power Switch set to STANDBY instead of OFF in the BIOS (See POWER TAB in BIOS), or you have something wrong in your laptop & it's not turning completely off.

If you have a healthy battery you should not be able to notice any real drain on the battery; that one LED draws about 5ma, & your battery should be able to power it for literally WEEKS. This would indicate to me you have something ELSE also not turning off in your laptop as well; the question now is what and why.

mnem
Where, oh where have my electrons all gone? Where, oh where can they be?

 

i will investigate some of your suggestions now thanks

 

Even in standby it should turn off.

 

Doesn't on mine. In fact if I press the F11 key, it comes out of standby.

mnem
This is not what he meant when he said LET THERE BE LIGHT.

 

Well then you must have the same problem as radiogeek because I just checked two with rubber backlits and when they go into standby the only sign of life is a blinking power light.

 

mnem; Does pressing any other keys bring it out of standby?

 

Yup - if I press [Enter] it does too.

If I turn it off via the Windoze Start menu or the power switch, it turns off. If I tell it to standby from Start Menu, it goes into standby, the power LED blinks & the F11 key stays lit.

mnem
Where is that #@$%&! [ANY] key?

 

Ok, that tells me that it's not fully going into standby mode (Which on all my books require the power button to kick back on).

This won't do much good for radiogeek, but mnem, try re-installing all of your drivers.

 

Modly, perhaps we are talking about two different things.

Standby shuts down all non-essential systems & sets the contents of main memory into an encapsulated state so it can be maintained by the CPU in a very low-power state; the computer is still on, but lit draws very little power (Some older computers had a separate standby battery & CMOS battery; tho I haven't seen that in a long time).

Hibernate loads a snapshot of the current memory into the hard drive, then sets a marker in the MBR so that it reboots from the snapshot file when it next powers up. It then powers completely off.

I prefer that my computer do as it does now; I still have the hibernate option available from the Windows Power applet.

mnem
Why do the file pointers always point at ME?

 

I know with hibernation on mine, it does what you said (Press any key to get it alive again), but when I use standby, it flashes my power light and won't let any other keys wake it.

So maybe it's me that screwed it up

 

I wasn't talking about the screen bezel sensor... That has nothing to do with the keyboard... That adjusts the power to the LCD (If it's a 12") I'm talking about the litle hole above the F4 key on the keyboard. Do you see a sensor down in there? If it is malfunctioning it may be sending a signal to stay on all the time. I've seen them do some weird things. IF you have the sensor... Try disconnecting it by flipping the laptop on it top. (So you have access to the bottom and be sure to remove the battery!) Remove the 4 screws on the small cover. Pull up the plastic covering in the corner. (Don't take it all the way off.) Then unscrew the little PC Board and disconnect the three little connectors. Making sure the connectors aren't going to short against anything... Flip it back over after reinstalling the battery and try it out.

Give it a try...