Re: keyboard stopped working
It sounds to me like you had a stuck key. The bios beeps if you keep pressing a key after the keyboard input buffer is full. Keyboard autorepeat causes continual beeping when a key becomes stuck in the down position. I think you have a dirty keyboard, causing one or more keys to stick from time to time. -Dale 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? Hmm... 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.ma...@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 bmi...@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. Hmm 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~(-: --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to
Re: What to do if you spill liquid on a laptop - OS independent.
Thanks for the how-to Jim. I only wish I would have known about that before. Oh well. I got a new laptop. I am only trying to make this one live a bit longer. Isn't it strange though wow the escape key worked. It doesn't beep anymore like there is a stuck key. I even started it while holding the escape key down it just happily boots windows or what is in the CD-ROM. On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 12:56 AM, Jim March 1.jim.ma...@gmail.com wrote: OK, somebody (probably you!) just spilled something on your laptop. What do you do? *Immediately* yank the power cord, flip it so that the keyboard and screen are both pointed down with the screen open at a normal 90deg angle, and pull the battery out. It should be angled like so: ^ and in that position, set it down. If you have to close it a bit tighter than 90deg so it'll stay that way, OK, fine. No more than 45deg if possible. This is the tented position and it keeps as much liquid as possible off the motherboard and screen internals. What to do next depends on the liquid. In the case of something corrosive, which includes: * Vinegar; * Cola or most other sodas; * Anything with a lot of citrus content; * Anything else acidic; * Light alcoholic drinks such as beer or probably most wines. ...you need to open it up, take it completely apart and clean everywhere the liquid touched. Rubbing alcohol is by far the best and safest cleaning agent. You'll need to pull the keyboard and clean it thoroughly. Believe it or not, flushing it under hot tap water works great. Dry it as best you can with a towel and let it dry. Be sure and pull out things like the memory banks and WiFi cards and clean the contacts on both the cards and motherboard with a Q-tip or the like and rubbing alky. Be also sure you get any tiny fibers out that could hose the connections! What about straight water? Well there's differing schools there. The power-down part and tent it is still vital - you must not apply power while the circuits are wet, period, end of discussion. I'm of the opinion that you are best off taking it at least partially apart and applying a hair dryer to the insides FROM AT LEAST TWO FEET AWAY - in other words, go slow, have patience, dry it the hell out. There's an alternative though: bury it in dry rice! I know, sounds weird but the stuff sucks up water like crazy and sometimes from a considerable distance IF there's not a lot of humidity in the air (such as Arizona!). You may still have to take the keyboard out and painstakingly poke the rice out with a toothpick or the like - something stiff but non-metallic, wood or plastic. This will likely work better if it's somewhat hot - on a cold winter night like right now that water won't want to travel as far and is more likely to make something rust, I think. (The rice trick is also well-known for cellphones and the like, and yet again, pull the battery first!) Only once everything is dry do you bolt it back together and re-apply power. Now, if you don't know how to take a laptop apart...well, honestly, if you're on a budget and really depend on your lappy, you need to do two things ahead of time: google for a good set of teardown instructions and bookmark them on another computer or otherwise keep them available, and go spend $16 at Radio Shack for a set of laptop-and-small-electronics screwdriver bits: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3932539 If you let a laptop sit overnight either wet or esp. with something corrosive inside, it won't live to morning and a trip to a repair shop. OK? Flat out, there will be corroded contacts somewhere and you're looking at a new motherboard minimum. Plus labor, and if it's an older rig it might not even be worth it. I saved a laptop of my own some years back from a coke spill at a TFUG event. I powered it down and tented it within seconds as described, finished the meet, did a full teardown and cleanout at home that same night. The only damage was to the WiFi card and I had another available that turned out to have more range and better drivers so no biggie. I have it on good authority that the critter lived to a ripe old age and probably still works as somebody's backup machine - I sold it with full disclosure of it's history about a year post-spill. If I'd had to buy another WiFi card it would have been $20 or less on Fleabay, $35 tops at SWS in Tucson or cheaper at Fry's in Phoenix. This was brought on by a recent post describing somebody else's spill :). Oh yeah. One last thing. Let's say the sucker really ends up dead. Maybe it shorted hard before you were able to pull the power. It happens. Odds are the hard disk is still OK. And since we're running Linux or the like, we're in luck: that same drive/OS set can boot some other computer just fine, with maybe a bit of video driver tweaks or whatever. So you can find any laptop that takes the same sort of
Merry Christmas to all
Merry Christmas to all my PLUG friends. - - - http://www.UpQuick.com/christmas - - - And may you all have a very Happy New Year! --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: Merry Christmas to all
Merry Christmas!! :-) -- Brian Fields arizona.r...@gmail.com An amateur practices 'til they get it right, a professional practices 'til they can't get it wrong. - Anon. if it isn't armour, or you can't take it to bed, it isn't worth havin' --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
Re: Merry Christmas to all
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! Mark On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 3:22 PM, AZ RUNE arizona.r...@gmail.com wrote: Merry Christmas!! :-) -- Brian Fields arizona.r...@gmail.com An amateur practices 'til they get it right, a professional practices 'til they can't get it wrong. - Anon. if it isn't armour, or you can't take it to bed, it isn't worth havin' --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss --- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
