Dell Studio 1737 Media Buttons problem

Hi there,

I have recently bought a Dell Studio 1737 laptop and am having a very annoying problem with the touch sensitive buttons to control volume etc. Basically, whenever I press one of the buttons, a screen comes up displaying the speaker and it won't allow me to do anything else, it just crashes. So I restart my laptop and it takes almost an hour for it to reboot into Vista. And I have noticed that one of the buttons is continuously illuminated when trying to reboot into Vista and won't turn off. It seems that as soon as you touch one of the buttons, Vista must think that there is someone constantly pressing down on the button and maybe this is why the light won't go off.

Basically, is there a way to completely disable these touch sensitive buttons so this problem doesn't keep happening? I really don't use them anyway.

Thanks for the help!

 

Everybody has problems with those buttons, it is a widespread issue, nobody seems to know what the problem is. Same thing happens on my Studio 1537, but it is the eject button that stays on.
You can temporarily solve this by:
1. Turn off your computer
2. Disconnect the AC Adapter, and take out the battery
3. Open the screen, and hold the power button down for 30 seconds or more.

That should clear it the next time you reboot your computer.
The only way to disable the buttons is to disconnect them from the motherboard itself.

 

Thats weird, I don't have this problem, fingers crossed I don't.

 

To disconnect the media bar completely, follow the instructions here: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/studio1737/en/SM/centrcnt.htm#wp1179889

You can disconnect the wire that links the media board to the motherboard. The only problem is that you lose the WiFi, Bluetooth, and HDD activity lights.