keyboard stopped working

[Jim March]

OK, obviously it's a hardware issue.  You've done good getting to that point.

Here's the problem: laptop keyboards generally don't have any "brains"
on board.  At all.  The entire keyboard controller hardware set is on
the motherboard.  So there's a strong chance it's the motherboard, but
not a certainty.

If it was mine, I'd do the following:

1) Go find instructions on how to pull the keyboard out on that
specific model, online.  Google is your friend.  So is a $20 set of
micro-sized screwdriver bits at Radio Shack that will let you take
apart more or less any type of laptop screw, from Torx to Phillips to
regular:

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3932539

EVERY geek needs this.  You can take apart all kinds of little
gadgets, not just laptops.  External hard drives, MP3 players (like a
Sansa I used to use that would hard-lock once in a while, had to pull
the battery that was behind micro-screws...).

2) Pop the keyboard off.  Do nothing else.  NOTE: laptop keyboard
connectors are oddball inside.  Basically, you'll have a flat "end"
that goes into a "slot" and then there'll be a thing that anchors it
called the "clip".  Go REAL easy sliding the clip back and forth as
you can break one of the ends.  The good news is, you can still make
it work even if it looks "broken" - this article with pics explains:

http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2009/11/17/fix-broken-keyboard-connector-on-laptop-motherboard/

3) See if that changes the boot behavior.  If it does, you may be in
luck - something is shorted out in the keyboard itself.  In that case
used laptop keyboards for various models (even older ones) are often
available on Ebay for cheap - as little as $10-$15, sometimes up to
$25, $40 would be high on an older one (used "pulled working").

If everything is the same keyboard in or out, well hell, I would
suspect the motherboard and at that point, anything from the Win98 era
is just not worth dealing with :(.

Jim

On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 10:09 PM, Michael Havens <bmike1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ________________________________
> I have a laptop (tohiba satellite m35x-s114) with windows 98 on it whose
> keyboard stopped working. I set it aside for about 4 months and then I had
> the bright idea that it might be a windows problem so I fired the computer
> up with mint12 (live) and it just started beeping at the very first screen
> (before bios). So I restated it again pressing the esc key and it loaded
> from the cd-rom but the keyboard still doesn't work. So I did it again .....
> sometimes it will load the cd but sometimes I get the BIOS screen. (it all
> depends on how long I hold the esc key down)
> I found that when I put a USB keyboard on it the computer will start.Will
> updating the BIOS help it? Or how do I fix the BIOS so it will initialize
> the keyboard?
>
> The BIOS screen says:
>
> <Bios name and copyright info>
> EAL21 BIOS Version V2.00
> CPU = Intel (R) Celeron(R) M processor 1.30GHz
> 247M System RAM Passed
> 1024K Cache SRAM Passed
> System BIOS shadowed
> Video BIOS shadowed
> Fixed Disk 0: <type>
> ATAPI CD-ROM: <type>
> Mouse initialized
>
> Then at the bottom of the screen it says to press f2 for setup and to press
> f12 for boot device selection menu.
> And the incessant beeping stats again after a second or so or it boots the
> cd-rom.
> Hmmmmmm.... Isn't the BIOS screen supposed to say 'Initializing keyboard'?
> it seems the BIOS no longer initializes the keyboard. Does anyone know if I
> can fix this? Or did this laptop go to the great bit-bucket in the sky?
>
>
> --
> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>
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