Sony Vaio Z "sticky", squeaky keys & doubled type

From what I can see, Sony is doing its best not to aknowledge any problem anywhere.

The TZ was more likely aknowledged because it was actually a hazzard.

Maybe the tech will say "yes, that's an issue" but officially they will never aknowledge it - even if they improve it in their update.

 

The problem with this is that I'm not sure if this is actually a hardware issue, whether it's an issue with just mine (or an isolated few), a software issue, or even just "user error," hence the reason for putting up this post. I don't have the time right now to be without my laptop, so sending it away for what could turn out to be a few weeks is not an option, especially if they send it back to me and say "we didn't find anything wrong with your computer."

Allso, by bringing it up in a forum or some other online discussion source, people have a place to discuss the problem and how widespread it is, as well as a hit on Google or other search engines, making it easier to find if sommeone else has the same problems but doesn't know where to start. The more people who say they have a problem with it, the more likely it is that Sony will do sommething about it on theirr end.

neoweaver: Thanks for the update. Do let us know how it goes. I'm gonna try giving them a call as soon as my current round of work finishes up and see what happens. No doubt they'll also say that this isnn't a "known issue" until more of us call in.

 

Hi All,

I just wanted to tell you that I am also experiencing the "doubled type" problem. Unfortunately I currently don't have time to contact the support. Let's see what they say to neoweaver...

I hope that even if it's a hardware problem, it can be fixed by a software patch.

Stefan

 

Just as an update: I'm starting to get the squeaky spacebar after not having it the first few weeks with the computer. So the rest of you that are lucky: you're not out of the woods yet.

As far as why not use the warranty to get a replacement: these are all annoying, but not as annoying as being without a laptop for several weeks, and potentially getting one back with a wiped hard drive (as Sony support did once to me with an old N505...)

 

I hear the squeaky space bar now and then just heard while typing this so the sound is kinda irritating

 

Whoa, well I posted on 10/5 that I didn't have these problems, but less than 3 weeks later, my keys are starting to squeak. Right now it's the backspace and enter keys. Also, my Z makes a creaking sound when I place my hand on the right palm rest. Thankfully, no double-type issues yet...

 

Which keys are starting to squeak for you? Just the space key, or backspace key, or others? It's starting to seem like the keyboard has some genuine build problems, but so far it seems like only a relatively small amount of people are having these problems. Either that or a lot more people are having them and aren't bothered too much by it.

 

I'd actually go with the latter...

Or its your typing, how hard you hit the keys...
But:
You've been fine on previous generations, so your new notebook shouldbe at least as good...

 

Agreed -- I seem to have just started taking in stride the annoyances of occasionally needing to remove a doubled letter. And it seems to be getting better, which probably means that there is something that you can do to prevent the doubling, and I seem to have unconsciously picked it up.

More and more keys are squeaking though. I think that my spacebar squeaks more the closer to its center I press it.

 

I've tried various pressures on the keys by typing in sequence "asdf" or ";lkj" (the "impatient tapping" motion) and it seems to happen no matter what pressure I put on it.

One thing I just thought of was if we hadd some kind of SDK access to the accelerometer in the Z I could probably try and create a program (or have someone else do it lol) that measures "pressure" levels when a key is typed, based on how much motion is created at the time the a key is pressed. Might not be a very scientific method of doing it, but it's one idea.

 

i want to pull the trigger now on a sony vaio z, specs are 2.4ghz, 320gb, 3gb ram, standard battery, for $1802, tax already included... but this issue making me back off... DOes sony have a cure for it?

 

Possibly in their refresh which will come out in winter at the latest looking at previous refreshes....

 

Would it be possible for anyone to record those noises? In a youtube vid or whatever. I have a M1330 and it's pretty noisy to type on during class. I'm wanting to buy a Vaio Z, but if the squeaky buttons are really bad that kinda kills the main purpose of it being a light and silent laptop...

Is the squeak bad enough for people sitting next to me to be annoyed by it?

 

i'd like to hear it to and see how bad it may be (the squeakiness), seems like a very annoying problem sadly.

i wonder if the keyboard needs to be 'worn in'? as people say it doesn't start straight away and doesn't always do it.

 

I've had the dreaded keyboard squeak a few times on my Z, with the backspace key (it's not done it for a while now though). When it's squeaking, it's mildly irritating. It's only a quiet squeak but in a very quiet environment you might get annoyed with it.

However, the Z isn't a silent laptop by any means. If absolute silence is your goal, you need to find a laptop with no fan (or an extremely quiet fan, which is rare) and an SSD. Personally, I don't find the (idle/low usage) fan noise on the Z intrusive, and the HDD noise from my Toshiba 320GB/5400rpm doesn't bother me either. But it's just not silent in the literal sense, it's very quiet.

The keyboard is very quiet when it's not squeaking, I should add!

 

just pulled the trigger today, ordered a Z, 2.4ghz, 320gb, 3gb ram, standard battery, home premium sp1 all in all 1550 after all discounts.. Good deal or no?

 

1550 what? Dollars, €, Pounds?
If is Dollars or Euros it sounds OK to me...

 

Alright, now the double type problem is really, really getting on my nerves. It's at the point where I'm ready to throw the computer across the room. I typed three words and it doubled three letters in said words.

The squeak I can live with, same with the "sticky" S key. However, I'm not sure I can live with the doubling of the letters... I've only had this laptop for a couple months now, but I'm now seriously considering alternatives because this doubled key thing is so annoying. I have to type passwords so carefully now that I have to even count how many * are there, just in case the keyboard decided to type a double letter (which it has, many times already).

erap: congrats on your purchase. However, please stay on topic in this thread.

 

its in $... sorry

 

sorry my bad

 

How many of you have this problem? My Z is coming today.

 

I have had my z for 2 weeks now, and my backspace button just started squeaking... anyone know if we can just pull these buttons off like any other keyboard? sort of just want to put a little oil in the key hinges.

 

Just got my Z. and "c" is doubletyping.

 

I've been wondering about this myself, but I found one post where someone's Z keys were popping themselvves off as they typed (I believe it was the Tab and Caps keys), so I've been a little wary about removing keys from the keyboard. However it doesn't involve removing the aluminum panel or anything if you decide to try.

Kaze: that's a real shame to hear, it confirms that it happens on brand new Zs as well.

I sent Sony tech support an email, and got back a pretty standard-sounding reply, with a link to the following page:

http://www.kb.sony.com/selfservice/documentLink.do?externalId=C129021

I myself have gone through all of the steps with no luck (kind of expected). I'll see if I can initiate a repair soon, if work permits.

Meanwhile I've been trying to think of ways to judge frequency of this problem, and possibly a remedy. One way I thought up was to create ann Excel spreadsheet and just type the same words that seem to screw up over a span of cells and see how many times the doubled letters occur.

A solution I thought up involves a programmer (which I am not, unfortunately). I would think it'd be a pretty easy program to make, one that simply removes the next letter typed if it's the same and was typed within a short period of time. For example, "remove duplicate letter if typed within .01 seconds after previous letter," or something to that affect.

I do worry that something like this might end up looking like a keylogger, which it would probably essentially be.

 

There is another problem with "removing double types".

What about "missing" -> two s or "ll" or "mm".

All the "wanted" double letters, these could get filtered as well.

 

that's why he put the test of <0.01s

 

I doubt it'll work.
Simply be because if you type quickly the time span between hitting the same key twice is very short - possibly neligible.

And doesn't windows incorporate a setting to prevent double types?

That should filter out "Double types"...

 

Yeah, windows already has that built in and I think you can adjust it, just go to keyboard settings in the control panel. Can't check it for you now cause I'm at a lecture, but it should be there.

Anyway, keyboards shouldn't double type, there's the built in delay, if you hold down any key on the keyboard it takes a while for it to start repeating and it doesn't repeat very fast unless you change the setting, it's set to a quite high delay by default in XP and Vista. If a keyboard double types while you're typing at a decently quick pace and you're not lingering at any key it's faulty.

 

I think Kaze has the idea.

If you haven't seen how quickly it types out the double letter you might not understand. The doubled letter comes out almost instantly, so if the program were to detect keystrokes input from the keyboard and remove any letters that meet two specific criteria it could be done. Those two criteria being "must be repeated, typed letter," and "must have occurred in less time than specified variable." That would filter out actual typed double letters that are typed in such a way that would be impossible for a human to do.

After you mentioned Windows having built-in functionality, I recalled it having something along the lines you mentioned. Filter Keys, was it?

I gave it a shot, but it felt more like it was restricting my typing than anything. I couldn't configure it to work for me, and I don't think it was doing what I was looking for anyway. Main problem being the settings wouldn't let me define the amount of time before it would allow the next letter to be typed, just gave me a bunch of presets (I want something that's less than .1 seconds, but there's no option for that). It was worth a shot tho.

 

You might find 0.1 seconds annoying as well, I easily type 10 letters a second while touch typing, so, at least for me, something like that wouldn't work since the program would block every single letter I try to type in quick succession.

The program would either have to work in a way that it constantly detects what button is being pressed by you, and blocking it for <10ms, since if the program would be asked to check if a letter has been, or is being typed twice, it's already too late. It would have appeared on your screen. And no programs like this ever work perfectly, cpu-"lag" or whatever can cause it to miss a cycle or two, causing the double letters to appear anyway. The "lag" might also cause the program to lock keys for longer than you want so that letters you want twice won't always appear, if you are typing quickly.

Just get it repaired? Having any kind of program running in the background is going to be annoying and take up resources, especially if it has to detect your keystrokes 10+ times per second :/. Maybe it'd be possible to make a program that locks keys for a certain time without needing some kind of detection cycles, but that'd add other problems.

 

Simply having it repaired gets you no-where - it'll be OK for say 2 weeks and start again.

What I find surprising that this only occurs on the Z and not on the FW and SR...

 

If it's a problem that keeps reappearing, shouldn't you be eligible to getting a full refund? Since the product is not working as intended, with or without repairs.

 

I suppose you couold go down that line, but here are reasons not to.
For example weight, power...size...

 

keyboard works fine for me now lol call sony complain and they gave me a new keyboard along with my other defects i had lol.

 

Question is though:
How long will it stay Ok?

If I'm not mistaken double types didn't appear immediately.

If they don't reappear on your keyboard then I wonder what Sony did...

 

I doubt that a new keyboard would solve the problem. Please let us know if you get double types again.

Any theories whether its software or hardware related?

 

Does the squeak come from where the keys are connected to the board, or do they squeak because they come in contact with the edges surrounding them?

 

The squeak seems to occur due to some mechanism beneath the key, some kind of friction that I'm too scared to take the key apart to find out about. It never touches the surrounding edges. For me, it only occurs on the Space bar.

On my keyboard, I think the problem was immediate, but I didn't take note of them till about a week or so after using it. Reason being I thought it was my not being used to the keyboard.

aznboinghia: can you keep us updated as to whether the problems come back after a while of use? If the double typing gets solved by a keyboard replacement, I'm gonna have this thing sent in and work on an older computer. How long did it take them to fix it? I also wonder if they'll give me the option of holding onto my computer till the part comes in and just take it in one day to have it swapped since the local repair facility is only about 10 miles away.

DetlevCM's got a point about having it refunded. I bought the Z on the grounds that it pretty much provided everything I needed in a laptop, especially for work, and it's delivered. There aren't really any other laptops accessible to me that cover all my needs like the Z does. It's just this problem with the keyboard.

As far as some kind of softwware solution idea goes, I was thinking a really low detection time, hence the <0.1 second . I don't know what my rate of typing is, but I'm suure it's around 8-12 letters a second, depending on the word. I messed with the keyboard repeat rate not long after I started this thread, but it didn't help the problem, even at the lowest repeat rate at the highest delay. It really is like the key is typing a letter twicce or more during a keystroke. Were I to guess, it's hardware related, not software.

 

If I were to guess I would go with hardware related rather than software too.

a) it only occurs on the Z series
b) a software problem would most likely have been solved through a little update

Just thinking - hasn't the Z got the "greatest give" in its keystrokes - someone mentioned once somewhere in here that its more than the SR for example.
Could this be the cause for the double types?

 

Seems like a possibility. If that'ss true that would probably mean something new was engineered for the Z's keyboard, and with new tech often comes unforseen problems. Odd thing is, sometimes it happens fairly often, then suddenly not at all. I would guess that if it were a software problem it would be continuous, not sporadic like it is now. Bad connection somewhere maybe? I might try disconnecting/reconnecting the keyboard later this week when work settles down a bit. Hopefully it's a fairly painless procedure...

 

this problem really stinks. I hope sony gets buried with reports from users. ***! they keep selling Z with this problem.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWv1AXnNLl8

Find this on youtube. The problem can be found on Japanese VAIO Z too.

 

that youtube vid is great, thanks for the link
you can see how quickly the double occurs there


very perplexing problem

 

Hoooooly crap! That's much worse than mine, but that's defiinitely the same problem. You can see how fast the 2nd letter appears, almost instantly, as if it's typing on the upstroke. Great find, thanks for posting that!

 

i wonder if that could be forwarded to sony.

 

Wow, that video is much worse than anything that I have. I hope that in figuring out how to fix that problem (which makes using the VAIO impossible) they'll figure out how to fix our annoyance.

Am also fearing for my left mouse button, which just doesn't feel right. Also noticing keyboard marks on the screen (that come off with a microfiber rag; I've started putting that rag between the screen and the keyboard), but these are issues for another thread.

Tj -- I tried disconnecting and reconnecting my keyboard and it didn't help, but YMMV.

 

Roger that, thanks for the info! You just saved me a bunch of time.

I guess the next logical step would be to just have it replaced.

 

It's probably a bad KB. I do not have that problem at all...

 

As far as I'm aware everyone starts off without the problem.

 

It's not possible to buy a laptop that will have this problem. What is sony telling you guys?