Other HP G62 Laptop Keyboard Issue

Hey all,

I’ve encountered a weird problem with my friend's HP G62’s keyboard. Certain keys have stopped working – most of the keys on the A-L row, plus the backspace key and a couple of others.

Mostly the problem manifests itself when attempting to log into Windows. Occasionally I can log in without incident but the problem always appears again sooner or later.

Originally the problem was intermittent but slowly became more common and is now pretty much constant (though not always).

Initially I thought it was a hardware fault with the keyboard (the laptop is a few years old now) but after a bit of investigation I’m not so sure.

All the keys appear to work in the BIOS – I tried setting a BIOS password just as a test and all key presses are registered just fine. I didn’t actually save the changes though as I didn’t want to risk not being able to access the BIOS again, but nevertheless the keyboard seems fine in the BIOS. I have repeated this test several times and always the key presses are registered.

This led me to believe the problem might be related to Windows – e.g. a driver issue or other such software conflict. I set about (with heavy use of the on-screen keyboard) rolling back, updating and re-installing the drivers respectively as well as messing about with the installed keyboard languages/layouts but nothing seemed to work. The same keys are still failing inside Windows – but not in the BIOS. I also tried returning the laptop to factory settings but that didn't work either.

I decided to re-format and re-install Windows completely (a reinstallation was long overdue anyway!!). I installed Windows 7 Pro from a verified-working disc (I’ve used the same disc for several problem-free installations on other PCs) but when it came to creating a user account and password the same problem with the same keys occurred again.

So, maybe not a software fault then… but all the keys work fine in the BIOS which would suggest it’s not a hardware fault either… help!

I haven't been able to try a Linux live CD as I haven't got one floating around and I'm all out of discs atm. I'll get hold of some soon and update the post if it sheds any light on things.

Anyone know what could be causing this and what, if anything, I can do to fix it?

Is it something to do with the BIOS being so low-level that whatever hardware fault is preventing Windows from registering the key presses is not affecting the BIOS? Is that even possible? Don’t most OSes ‘talk’ to the hardware through the BIOS anyway? I just can’t understand why the keyboard seems to work flawlessly in the BIOS but not elsewhere.

Perhaps it’s a bug in the BIOS itself? Faulty MoBo? Extra-dimensional entity taken up residence in the keyboard controller?

I was originally going to simply replace the keyboard but I’m not sure if going to the expense and trouble of doing so will yield any results now.

Btw if it helps, and to save potentially going over old ground, I’ve tried a few other things too before posting here, after a few searches and perusing HP's support forums;

Tried a USB keyboard and this worked fine – so at least I know there’s no problem with the USB ports

Also tried a suggestion I found on which involved removing the battery and holding the power button down for 30 seconds to remove any residual charge, then plugging in and booting up straight to the BIOS without the battery attached and resetting the BIOS to default settings. This didn’t work either - and I tried it twice just to make sure!

Any feedback or further will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers.

 

sounds to me like the keyboard is failing.

a-l row fail sounds bad, not sure how you verified that in bios since would you use that row in bios? A keyboard circuit board arranges each key in a matrix, imagine each key has an x and y coordinate, a key press plots this coordinate and then the software knows which key is pressed. In this case an entire row of keys in the same y axis is failing, that indicates that the specific track all of these keys is on is faulty.

So I think this is a hardware issue. I would remove the keyboard and inspect it, blast it with compressed air in case any dust or crud is shorting the tracks, then try reseating the keyboard and if nothing works try a replacement keyboard.

 

As said above, you could also try removing the BIOS battery, as well as the laptop battery, but I doubt it will work.
Possibly reseating the cables to the board may fix it. But I would hazard a guess that the ribbon cable is damaged between the board and keyboard. EBay should have them for a small amount, under 10 quid or so...

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I would have just got a replacemnt keyboard by now. Whip the keyboard off and look for the SPS spares number, it will look like something like this...123456-001

 

Just had a thought, it's not something stupid like booting with the alternate keyboard setup. Like when you hold the fn key and select F3 or something.

 

I set a BIOS password comprising of all the failing keys. All the key presses were registered fine every time.

Thanks for the input guys. I'll see about getting a replacement ribbon cable first and work my way up from there.

I don't think it's anything to do with alternate keys etc. I tried various configurations of caps lock, num lock etc etc and got the same results. I'll look into it though. Thanks for the suggestion.


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