keyboard stopped working

[Michael Havens]

I don't know what I did but it no longer beeps and it starts windows
normally. I said 98? I meant xp (SP3). So you suspect the motherboard, huh?
That might be the issue. My wife spilled wine into it about 3 months prior.
I let it dry out  and it  worked after that until the keyboard stopped
working a few months later. My questions are: if the keyboard isn't working
why does the escape key work? Hmmmmmm... I can't get it to do the same
thing it did when it was beeping

On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 10:34 PM, Jim March <1.jim.march at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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-- 
:-)~MIKE~(-:
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