Keyboard just stopped working - Inspiron 2650 notebook

Hi,

My wife has a Dell Inspiron 2650 notebook that she uses here at home. This
machine has led a pretty easy life - it never leaves her desk and is mostly
just an email and web PC. We've owned it since it came from the factory, so
I know its life-long, trouble-free history.

The other day the keyboard just stopped working. Dead, Nada. None of the
keys work and I can't figure out why. I plug a keyboard in the PS2 port on
the back and that works fine, but my wife definitely hates having an
external keyboard. (Too much clutter, that's why she wanted a laptop in
the first place.) So I need to figure out a solution.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do or anything I can check?
This is truly puzzling. Is it possible for the keyboard to simply quit
working?

Any and all suggestions welcome! Thanks in advance.
Keith

"KWA" wrote in message
. ..
Hi,

My wife has a Dell Inspiron 2650 notebook that she uses here at home.
This machine has led a pretty easy life - it never leaves her desk and is
mostly just an email and web PC. We've owned it since it came from the
factory, so I know its life-long, trouble-free history.

The other day the keyboard just stopped working. Dead, Nada. None of the
keys work and I can't figure out why. I plug a keyboard in the PS2 port
on the back and that works fine, but my wife definitely hates having an
external keyboard. (Too much clutter, that's why she wanted a laptop in
the first place.) So I need to figure out a solution.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do or anything I can check?
This is truly puzzling. Is it possible for the keyboard to simply quit
working?

Any and all suggestions welcome! Thanks in advance.
Keith


Keith,

Sure is possible. You'll want to call Dell Spare Parts at 1-800-357-3355 to
price a replacement. Last one I bought was less than $30 including shipping
and tax.

There are installation documents available he

http://support.dell.com/support/syst...&s=dhs&~cat=12

By model, then look for the user's guide/service manuals.


Stew

Thanks, Stew, for the quick response. I will give them a call.

Keith

"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

"KWA" wrote in message
. ..
Hi,

My wife has a Dell Inspiron 2650 notebook that she uses here at home.
This machine has led a pretty easy life - it never leaves her desk and is
mostly just an email and web PC. We've owned it since it came from the
factory, so I know its life-long, trouble-free history.

The other day the keyboard just stopped working. Dead, Nada. None of
the keys work and I can't figure out why. I plug a keyboard in the PS2
port on the back and that works fine, but my wife definitely hates having
an external keyboard. (Too much clutter, that's why she wanted a laptop
in the first place.) So I need to figure out a solution.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do or anything I can
check? This is truly puzzling. Is it possible for the keyboard to simply
quit working?

Any and all suggestions welcome! Thanks in advance.
Keith


Keith,

Sure is possible. You'll want to call Dell Spare Parts at 1-800-357-3355
to price a replacement. Last one I bought was less than $30 including
shipping and tax.

There are installation documents available he

http://support.dell.com/support/syst...&s=dhs&~cat=12

By model, then look for the user's guide/service manuals.


Stew

"KWA" wrote in message
. ..
Thanks, Stew, for the quick response. I will give them a call.

Keith



You're most welcome. Way outside chance it could be the controller on the
system board, but almost surely is just a kb failure.

Good luck.


Stew

On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 02:44:04 GMT, "KWA" wrote:

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do or anything I can check?
This is truly puzzling. Is it possible for the keyboard to simply quit
working?

Hi Keith,

I doubt this will be very helpful to you but here is what I would do.
Sometimes in the process of doing all this things magically start
working again.

I would first look at all bios options. If there is something related
to keyboards in even an indirect fashion, I might turn it off and
boot, then restart, turn it back on and reboot.

I would boot up into SAFE mode, and see if it works there.

Actually the first thing that I would do is go into the device manager
and see if anything is flagged.

It's amazing how many computer problems I have solved or got more
insights into by "kludging around" with it. (I know, I am making all
you technical experts groan lol).

Journey

P.S. -- one final and very important step:

If none of the above works, I would take a BIG hammer and BANG on the
keyboard until you loosen up all of the keys -- make sure you bang
firmly and evenly over all of them.

Journey,

Interesting idea on looking in the BIOS. I will do that. Also trying Safe
Mode. Good idea as well. I will do both tomorrow.

I did look at Device Manager under Keyboard. It just shows a generic 102
key keyboard item, so I assume that is OK.

Thanks for the good ideas. I will try that while also calling Dell about a
new keyboard.

Keith

"journey" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 02:44:04 GMT, "KWA" wrote:

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do or anything I can check?
This is truly puzzling. Is it possible for the keyboard to simply quit
working?

Hi Keith,

I doubt this will be very helpful to you but here is what I would do.
Sometimes in the process of doing all this things magically start
working again.

I would first look at all bios options. If there is something related
to keyboards in even an indirect fashion, I might turn it off and
boot, then restart, turn it back on and reboot.

I would boot up into SAFE mode, and see if it works there.

Actually the first thing that I would do is go into the device manager
and see if anything is flagged.

It's amazing how many computer problems I have solved or got more
insights into by "kludging around" with it. (I know, I am making all
you technical experts groan lol).

Journey

P.S. -- one final and very important step:

If none of the above works, I would take a BIG hammer and BANG on the
keyboard until you loosen up all of the keys -- make sure you bang
firmly and evenly over all of them.

On Fri, 31 Mar 2006 03:40:03 GMT, "KWA" wrote:

Journey,

Interesting idea on looking in the BIOS. I will do that. Also trying Safe
Mode. Good idea as well. I will do both tomorrow.

I did look at Device Manager under Keyboard. It just shows a generic 102
key keyboard item, so I assume that is OK.

Thanks for the good ideas. I will try that while also calling Dell about a
new keyboard.

Keith

Sounds good. Please let us know what you find out.

Journey