Need Help: some keys of my vgn-z520n are intermittently working

Some of the keys of my Z-Series Vaio (E, A, D, X specifically) are not functioning. I believe this was caused by my 1-year old son pounding the keyboard on both occassions.

On the 1st incident (yesterday), I went ahead to Safe Mode and opened Notepad to test the keys which, surprisingly, all worked after a minute of continues testing/typing.

A few hours ago, the 4 keys were acting up again so I tried Safe Mode to no avail. Then, I remembered that Win7 had a notification that I had to install a certain driver that pointed me to Sony eSupport (Sony® Programmable I/O Control Device Driver). After installation, a dialog box appeared stating that it might not have installed correctly. Tried to install it twice but got the same result. This prompted me to do a system restore. After doing that, the keys have the same issue.

My frustration turned into worry so I did a System Recovery using the recovery partition. I believe that doing so would install the correct drivers that may resolve the problem. After restoring to Windows Vista Business, the keys still intermittently work.

Is there anything else I can do to diagnose if this is a software or hardware issue? Any software that can determine that? Could it be that the keyboard needs cleaning? Any sites with instructions on how to do it?

 

If it was a driver issue the keyboard would work or not. My guess is that your son unseated some domes, so they have to be 'rolled over' with the finger, so that under certain circumstances they can still make a connection. Could also be broken or unseated scissor-action mechanism.

Take it in for repair - or download a disassembly manual (there must be one around here) and try it yourself, if you feel able.

 

could also be that the connector from the keyboard to the motherboard is damaged or lose.

 

Prior to doing the system recovery, I took off the top part of the keys of X and E. I depressed the domes of X using my finger but it didn't type anything on the screen. Did the same procedure with E and it worked...sometimes. Perhaps there is an alignment issue from the domes to where it should come in contact with the 'circuit board'. I've already downloaded the disassembly manual and will try tinkering with the keyboard assembly.

Regarding the brackets underneath the top part of the keys, it doesn't seem to be broken although I almost broke the one in E when I tried to put it back.

 

A co-worker of mine also suggested the same thing. I'll try to disconnect/re-connect the ribbon once I open up the laptop.

 

Ok, things got worse...tsk tsk!

I finally opened my Sony Z and disconnected and re-inserted the ribbon that connects the keyboard to the motherboard. I noticed some dust accumulation in the cpu fan so I decided to disassemble the laptop (only got to the mainboard with heatsink/exhaust fan attached). After some cleaning, I then re-assembled the whole thing making sure all of the ribbons, connectors were in their proper place.

I turned on the laptop, it shows the VAIO screen but it won't boot to windows (blank screen). After several restarts, I accessed the BIOS but had limited access due to my faulty keyboard. Fed up, I tried to access the recovery partition but got the 0xc000000e9 (An unexpected I/O error has occured.) error.

Since I didn't have my Vista recovery disks, I tried to reformat using Win7 via bootable usb. It seemed to work but it took a considerate amount of time (approximately 5 minutes at best) for it to progress from one installation window to the next. I choose install Win7 and went as far as copying files window where it got stuck at 0%.

OMG...what have I done!?!?!?

What I/O device/s could be causing this?

 

Sounds like the keyboard connector possibly isn't in there right still?