Dell Inspiron 1200 Laptop & Keyboard problems

Hello Everyone
My wife has a major problem with her Inspiron 1200 laptop
When depressing a key she gets two letters each time.
ie you press d get dc, press g get gb, press h get hn etc etc etc. Has anyone had this problem and if so what is the fix. I'm thinking it could be the keyboard is faulty but I'm just guessing. The laptop is nearly 2 years old and has hardly been used, she only uses it for her course work.
Any help would be appreciated as she is about to start the next module of her degree course and it may be that i have to buy another laptop for her, or am i being hastey. I havent done a full factory setting restore yet as i need to transfer all her data onto disc. Thanks everyone. Kiting2002

 

Search google for "inspiron 1200 keyboard". You should find some replacement keyboards for under $50.

If you think it's caused by crumbs or gunk in between the keys, you can remove the keyboard and clean it out. But if it looks and feels fine then cleaning probably won't help. Actually you may want to try taking out the keyboard anyway before ordering a replacement... it may help you see if there are any obvious problems, like if the connection to the motherboard is loose or something...

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins2200/en/SM/keyboard.htm

 

Hi there:

I am using an external keyboard (USB connected) to type this reply on this Inspiron 1200 laptop. I will now show you what is displayed when I use the laptop itself to type the following sentence:

"The big brown cow jumped over the great big moon."

Here goes:

"Thed bikg brfolwsn colws ujujmp;eded olvedrf thed grfedqat bikg mololn."

According to Dell, this is a problem with the motherboard. Unless you have an extended warranty on your laptop, then you will either have to pay Dell for the fix or use an external keyboard as I am using to type this.

If you want, you could research this further and try contacting Dell. It is my belief that Dell would rather forget about this problem. It may be bigger than you or I could imagine.

This is NOT a problem with a "dirty" keyboard, so don't try buying a keyboard unless Dell will warrant that it's the keyboard and not the motherboard.

Good luck

Dennis

 

A similar issue turned up on my laptop also. When pressing one of the top row of letters the number from next row up is added. w -> w2 o -> o9 Also, pressing the right arrow key causes the right and up actions.

This happened after I replaced the motherboard in my Dell Lattitude C600 laptop. The power connector had failed to work, meaning that I can only run the thing off of batteries. I didn't want to throw the thing away, and using only batteries was getting annoying, trading batteries all the time with my wife. I bout a new replacement through the mail and swapped everything out.

After ordering the laptop I came to see that a docking station would have delt with the issue, it appears to give power through the central docking port. But that's besides the point.

When I swapped in the new motherboard I may have connected something wrong, but does it really seem likely that the only side effect of my mistake is that a few keys give out doubles!?

I tried swapping in a keyboard from another laptop and the same symptom came. Then I tried using an external keyboard via the ps2 port and all works fine. So there is something wrong between the built in keyboard and whatever sends that signal to the cpu.

Been searching for a while and got no hits, except for this posting. If you have tips or ideas please let me know.

 

This link talks about loose keyboard connections, but as I have swapped out the keyboards a few times this doesn't apply to me.

http://dsandler.org/wp/archives/2006/09/10/a-fix-for-conjoined-dell-laptop-keys#comment-26850

 

I had a virtually identical problem with an inspiron 2200. I removed the keyboard, gave the keyboard flex-cable a bit of a wipe on my jumper, and reconnected it. So yay to tom.g.coleman and swarmer for the links, you earned me an easy 20 quid, thanks!