Latitude / XPS13 keyboard typoes fixed by BIOS update 1.9.3

I have a Latitude 7380. I noticed I was getting frequent typoes, on certain types of keystrokes / combinations. I narrowed it down to a defect with the keyboard firmware, affecting all of these laptop models:

- Latitude 7380
- Latitude 7390
- Latitude 7480
- XPS 13

and probably other models in a similar form-factor!!! Those are just the ones I've identified in the wild.

After some back-and-forth with Dell, they have solved the issue. It is fixed by a new BIOS update: 1.9.3, released on March 15, 2018.

In the release-notes for the BIOS update, it says: "Fixed the internal keyboard fast typing character loss or repeating issue that occurred at very high words per minute (WPM) typing speed."


However this update is not yet available for the XPS 13..... hopefully that will come out in the next few weeks! They said it might take some time so don't hassle Dell for the fix yet... but if there's nothing for you by mid-April then you should definitely ask them about it!

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How to see the issue:

There were two problems. Problem 1 is easier to reproduce. Open any text-editor like Notepad, and:
1. Type the letter "g".
2. At the same time, type the letters "fg".

If you see "gfg", there is no problem. Maybe your f and g were not fast enough together; try to hit them at basically the same time, but with the f first.
If you see "gf", you have hit the bug! You typed a second "g" but it was dropped by the firmware.
If you see "ggf" then try again, you need to type the f before the second g (but just veeeerrry slightly).

This problem is for any two keys on the keyboard!! Even the spacebar. So if for example you were ever trying to quickly type a series of dashes and spaces, it might have been super annoying without this BIOS patch.

Problem 2: Same sort of thing, but just with a single letter. If you for example hit the letter "a" many times very fast, and then just kind of hold it down after a soft bounce, sometimes you'll end up holding down the letter but nothing happening (when instead it should be repeating across the screen). This too is fixed by the update.


Just thought you cats would like to know!

 

I found that when I would do certain Windows key combos....would not always register. Seems to be better now.