P950HR Keyboard issues

I'm going to have to send my P950HR back to supplier to have a keyboard issue fixed but am after some insight on exactly what could have happened so i can avoid this in the future.

It's a P950HR, with a backlit keyboard and about a month ago the CTRL key would intermittently not work, about 2 weeks ago they worked less and less and now they only work when the laptop is on a flat surface and only sometimes (e.g. i can't use it on my lap, typing on my lap currently and can confirm not working). To a lesser degree the g key (pressed it 3 times to et it working there) has the same issue as well as the left and right keys which i'm now noticing don't seem to be working at all sometimes. I really love this PC so i've always treated it carefully, had it in a case, left on flat surfaces etc.

I've tried a few things; reseat the ribbon cables, a variety of things around CTRL keys like tappin adjacent keys (which actually sometimes works), booting into a windows PE (as in ruling out drivers), and testin the keyboard at various temparatures and the only thin which makes any difference is whether it's on my lap or on a flat bench. The only thing i've added to this PC is an NVME drive which is mounted on the original spacer and which once removed doesn't fix the issue.

What could this issue be? I can only come up with the chassis bending too much and some connector on the mobo loosening up but it definitely does not appear to be the ribbon on the keyboard.

I've seen the updated version of my PC and am nervous i'll end up with the 160watt model as a replacement so i'd like my PC fixed basically.

Cheers,
k

 

I've seen a couple of P95x which have broken keyboards, they seem to break for no reason.

The cost is also quite massive for those keyboards, so I hope for your sake that it's within warranty.

 

My reseller sells them for around £30 IIRC. You can also find them on Taobao for a decent price.

 

Yes it's not an Apple and riveted into a top chassis with a battery glued to it.

 

Last time I checked resellers on P9xx boards, they quoted more than that. Which is a joke.

 

Well then it pays to shop around I guess.

 

if I were to purchase a keyboard for the P950hr at sager, how much would it cost?

 

I'd have to ask the parts department, I'd you are interested you can always drop sales a line.

 

Yeah i bought it in March this year and my warranty is a 1 year premium warranty + 1 year extended so i should be all good on warranty front, they've been really helpful and have got me trying a BIOS flash at the moment and have said keyboard issues (at least south of the equator) like this are rare so it could possibly be that... I had assumed this sounded like some kind of motherboard issue given it's so intermittent and given it changes frequency of occurrence based on whether it's on my lap or a flat surface but if you guys think keyboard issue then that's a load off my mind at least, cheers

 

Keyboards are very mechanical, intermittent issues like that are more likely to be related to that.

 

Hi

Same issue with a P950. Keyboard just wont recognize F, B, H, all keys in the same vecinity. Computer is practically new. Contacted Sager support, a guy Wesley that says is a Service Manager, was unhelpfull. Any suggestions on how to get it fixed will be much appreciated.

 

When you say unhelpful what happened? If there is a physical issue it would need to come back for repair.

 

I've had issues on P650 as well as P950. I think there is an inherent design flaw in Clevo keyboards relating to heat, which sucks as these are gaming laptops that are going to get hot. I don't notice the issues anymore as I game on an external keyboard 99% of the time now, but whenever I am out of the house and decide to play, the issues will always arise.

The first issue existed on both P650 (three different keyboard replacements) and also my current P950HR - that is the W key gets "stuck" while gaming. As in, you release the key, but the character continues to move forward for anywhere between 1-3 seconds. Very very frustrating. This issue happened on every single replacement keyboard so it wasn't a random issue. I concluded that it has to be heat related because the CPU chip is right under the W key area. The issue can be replicated in Notepad as well. Hold down W, let it go after a while, and you will see Ws continue to appear. But this ONLY happens after gaming for some time. Can't replicate this when the machine is cool, no matter how hard I press W. So it almost certainly is heat related.

The other issue is as @jpnankervis mentioned, which I've only noticed on my P950HR where F, B, H, and T will stop working. Again, this usually happens after gaming for some time so again points to heat. But I have usually been able to fix this by spamming on of those keys repeatedly which suddenly brings them back to life.

I think Clevo needs to seriously consider redesigning their keyboards. It's kinda unacceptable for a laptop designed for gaming having a keyboard, and crucial keys like W, fail to function as intended when at high temperatures, which a gaming laptop will inevitably be.

 

A few weeks later and it's back and all fixed; it was the keyboard. I suspect Metabox ran out of stock, ordered and meanwhile tried the BIOS thing etc just in case it was an issue with these things. Metabox paid pickup and return and replaced the keyboard free of charge so i certainly can't complain. Best bet is contact reseller and if they suggest something like windows confirm with them it's present in Windows, alternate Windows login, Windows pre boot environment, DOS and BIOS and they can't really argue with that, means it's a hardware or BIOS fault. Try that out if they fob you off. Metabox Australia was brilliant, can definitely recommend their service

 

It's always good to test devices if you can in the BIOS as above and it does rule out the OS.

 

FYI, new keyboard having intermittent CTRL key issues already. About to send back again for warranty... After that i'll be buying and installing these things myself. These were supposedly a newer batch, this one lasted 2 months, the original 8 months so they're doing something wrong. Hopefully they last a few months, don't try to sting me more than $30 and I can just look at it as my $10 per month maintenance fee

 

Yikes, $100 AUD (so say 75 US) shipped from china for these keyboards, how is that even possible... i'll start researching compatible models to find if there's anything cheaper than a p950 specific one

Does anyone know exactly what the issue is with these keyboards? Is it stress on ribbon cables by heat expansion or does the circuitry warp or is it something mechanical?
Reason I ask is i might try some really thin heat shielding or something on the new one, has anyone seen this done?

I'm hitting like 65deg CPU and 74 degGPU gaming (this with 60FPS pretty well locked on max graphics on Forza Horizon 3, 4 Tomb Raider Shadow, Witcher 3(except for hair which drops me to 55) etc so am pushing it pretty hard... But it's all going out the vents (I game with it on a custom riser which fully supports it but means CPU and GPU vents are clear as well as 95% of ventilation under chassis). I know that some manufacturers use the keyboard to release heat just because it rises and keyboards don't need to exactly be structural but given my temps I'd like to bounce it back down for the fans to sort out, the top of my keyboard is almost too hot to touch when gaming.

Cheers

 

Same with my keyboard. WASD and L-SHIFT keys are all sticky.

 

Any chance that PC has a keyboard that looks like the P950? Possible bad stock according to someone I was talking to... But i also read that clevo sager keyboards are generally crap soo

My keyboard failed in exactly the same way as the first, CTRL, G, left and right

 

As an update to this keyboard is dying again, so far just the C , CTRL and SPACE keys but this will be the third time I'm returning it (in 6 months) and this time I'm out of warranty so I'm out for postage... Supposedly last time it was replace with a keyboard from a newer model but that didn't help. Genuinely think a PC replacement is all that'll fix it, might have to end up going to ombudsman and settling it that way zzzz, can't see someone from meta/clev/sager sending me a more recent PC in exchange for my unfixab slightly older one

 

My P950HR's keyboard was broken somehow, that some keys are occasionally not respond to click almost identical to what OP described. Luckily I was able to sent back to Sager (I didn't purchase directly from Sager though), which back then was only 2-3 months after i got my P950HR in 2017. I thought this was just a rare case and didn't think too much.

However, this issue has happened after maybe 6 months or so again... Well this time not as many keys are broken compares to first time. But ever since i discovered that my laptop keyboard is broken again, I don't feel comfortable to bring my P950HR outside without an external keyboard, and therefore I usually station my laptop with an external keyboard always connected, so I can still live with my laptop keyboard being broken intermittently. I did not bother to do RMA again because i know that my laptop keyboard would be broken even after a replacement...

Maybe high internal temperature is causing broken flex cable, maybe keyboard controller cannot withstand high temperature. But i feel like that particular keyboard model being use in P950HR is flawed.

 

I was hoping it was just the 950HR but they actually tried the P955 i believe keyboard in mine and I've got the same issues. I'm almost dead certain it's because the keyboard heats up so much during gaming, even with fans at max (which is what Clevo recommend) and using the best laptop stand money can buy the keyboard gets very warm... I am looking into consumer rights on this kind of thing (specifically sending the unit back multiple times (this is the fourth) for the same issue and receiving the same resolution which is just a temporary fix) in Aus. Metabox are being helpful, paying postage etc, replying quickly, but I partially use this as a business laptop so it costs me money in down-time to send it 3,500 kms to the other side of the country just to receive a new keyboard and a doomsday clock zzz.

I love this laptop, best i've ever owned, but this is absurd, I'll pay he extra $800-1000 next time and buy one from a company which acknowledges faults in models and designs new iterations of hardware to fix issues, especially while the thing is under warranty zzzz

 

Reply removed pending further testing of new mobo keyboard and palm rest

 

The keyboard in the P95X series is a total POS. I had a similar problem with my P957HR. It died within warranty. I got it replaced. Now the new one is giving trouble. Different keys this time, but gets very annoying especially when typing in passwords where you can't see your mistakes (most net banking sites don't allow copy paste either, so you're either stuck with an external keyboard, or that horrible on screen keyboard.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/help-keyboard-on-p957hr-died.821232/

This is totally unacceptable. A $2000+ laptop and the keyboard keeps dying. My old VAIO VPCZ1 is still alive after 9 years - I wore out the fans and wore out the forward and down arrows on the keyboard reading ebooks, but the rest of the keys still work. Replaced the LCD twice - my bad - broke it. Replaced the battery, and that's it. THAT'S the kind of build quality I want. I'm pretty sure my next laptop will NOT be a Clevo. My P950HR has already gone through two keyboard replacements and a motherboard repair. And now my battery is not charging.

Someone PLEASE find a COMPATIBLE keyboard. I don't mind if the keyboard has a single colour backlight, or even no backlight at all. I just want something that works. There is very little point in getting more of the same POS if it is going to keep dying like this.

Btw. in my case I'm pretty certain it was NOT heat. I don't game much and I watch the temperatures like a hawk.

 

Yeah it's a real shame, i've tried 3 different batches, ended up getting a full hand rest and motherboard replacement which seems to have fixed it for me... it was a new batch of MOBOs, hand wrests and keyboards, you should ask them for this upgrade.

I tried a P955 keyboard, and two different P950 keyboards previously but same issue.

I've since upgraded to an Asus and won't go back ,especially since the BRAND NEW models still have these horrible keyboards.

 

Could you please tell me the part number of the new keyboard?
Also, did you find out whether the problem lies in the keyboard or in the motherboard itself?

 

I've been having the same issues with my laptop. I have a Velocity Micro Raptor S55 and the odd thing is it's working right now, but then the F, B, H and T and the J,Y and C will have problems. They replaced the keyboard back in March, and not even two months later it was giving problems. Of course, the warranty expired in a month after that. So there no fix to this? Considering what this laptop cost, this shouldn't be happening. The customer service at Velocity is phenomenal, but you're paying for it considering the price of their laptops. I knew of should have gotten another Falcon NW. It came with a better video card and SSD drive. It was only a few hundred more.

 

When decent companies who care about their reputation make a mistake, they fix it. Samsung did it for their bad batch of cellphone batteries; many car makers have recalled defective designs. Clevo's rebranding system seems to have let them off the hook. Everyone is blaming their respective reseller, whereas the fault lies with Clevo.

 

Such protection varies by country.

 

I know this is an older thread, but I have the same issue. Mine is Sager NP8851 (Clevo P959ER) which I bought from GenTech on 4/24/2018. It worked fine until 11/2019, then slowly I lost the CTRL, g, 1 on the number pad, and the arrow keys; intermittently at first, then mostly completely. G key I could get to work if I kept pressing it, but the others usually not. I tried in Windows Safe mode (same thing). I attached external keyboard which worked fine. The only thing I could figure out is that when it was shut down completely for a day or more I would initially have use of the keys. But no matter what, eventually they would stop working. Even if I just had the laptop on without much use, or with the top shut overnight. As soon as I woke it up the problem would occur. Very frustrating. I do game some, but not much (like Civ VI...). And it's always on Kootek Laptop Cooling Pad when gaming or not.

Anyway, I finally got frustrated enough to send it back to GenTech (I paid for extended warranty). Been there for a week and I've heard nothing so I'll call them Monday. I didn't find this thread when the problem first started, but now reading this I'm assuming this will just be the slow death of this laptop for me, which is frustrating. Someone said this is like a business laptop...disagree, I have business Thinkpads and Dells, all of which operate fine without mechanical failures after YEARS.

 

Well, Perhaps I'll just have to let a class action lawyer know about the defective design. I wonder how many models used this keyboard, and how many resellers would be affected too.

As mentioned by others, I WILL NEVER BUY A CLEVO AGAIN. Quite honestly, I would advise not buying from any reseller that sells this piece of junk either. How can they possibly let this go on, and still consider themselves as top notch in customer service, or quality builds.