samsung series 7 backlit keyboard not working

my series 7 i bought from jr.com the backlit keyboard doesnt light up

except for the wifi button and the fn lock button

i turned up the brightness in easy settings to the highest and tried to restore the laptop to factory and it did nothing

i called samsung and they told me theyd be calling me back within 24 hrs...horrible customer service

they took long enough to release this laptop
im so dissapointed i got a defective unit

hate to say this but i feel like this wouldve never happened had i gotten a MBP
wouldve cost me 1k more but
i wouldve had it months ago and if something were to go wrong i know apple would QUICKLY fix it

anyone have any ideas as to how i might try to troubleshoot this on my own before samsung calls me back?
(please read above to see that i've already tried some things)

normally i would get jr.com to replace it but these laptops are on backorder...

 

Yeah, but you could have bought two for the cost of a MBP, and the chances are you'd have had at least one that was working fine!

Apple support is great, but they're not always fast. It took them 3 weeks to tell me they couldn't repair my iPhone economically.

 

Hmm you maybe got defective backlit. I got mine this morning and when i turned it on for the first time it lit.

 

im sending mine in for repairs...they estimate a 7-10 day turnaround time
smh

 

Yeah that sucks. We waited so long for this.

 

I had a defective unit too. I also called Samsung, and they told me it would be 7-10 business days. Luckily I ordered from Amazon, so I called them up and they sent a new unit even before I returned the defective unit. Great service from Amazon!

 

great now my laptop is bsod...first the backlight doesnt work...i havent been able to send it in because i have had tests to take and i planned on sending it after thanksgiving(this sunday) and its bsod on me

you bought one directly from amazon? or through amazon from jr?

 

All I can say is ouch...
I ordered mine from Tigerdirect

 

I think either way, you could call Amazon to see if they have a return policy. If it's through JR but still under Amazon, I believe Amazon is still responsible. You could call them about their return policy.

 

nope...theyll return my money but they can't replace it because its out of stock.
so...I'm just gonna send it into samsung with a note saying it also "blue screen of death"

is there an official term for that screen lol?

 

The screen is fine after you do your own adjustments.
Btw if you want to order it still Tigerdirect has them in stock.

 

what are you talking about? The laptop "blue screen of deathed" as in the memory dump screen that turns on when something is wrong with your computer.
I always wondered if there was an official term for that.

 

We always called it BSOD. It just telling you something is wrong is could be problem is hardware install incorrectly or you got defective hardware.

 

Badly written drivers can als cause a BSOD.

John

 

Right forgot about that ahah. Kind of hard to find out what's wrong since it came out of the box broken.

 

Guys, please I'm asking your help.
I have a samsung serie 7 NP700Z4A and backlit keyboard was working properly. However the notebook was a bit slow, so I decided to uninstall the Easy Settings by Revo Unistaller, This software erased all registers, and now the backlit keyboard does not light up anymore. I tried to return to factory settings, but without success. This problem may be related to the computer's BIOS?
Thank you very much!

 

Easy Settings includes the drivers for Fn key control as explained here. While you could try doing a custom installation of Easy Settings as discussed in that thread, it would be easier to move to Version 2 which is better behaved.

You can find Version 2 using SW Update and use the Find Model facility to look among the newer notebooks. If you haven't got SW Update installed then see here.

John

 

Hi John thanks for replying.

I installed the new version as the topic that you have indicated, however all FN keys work except the light control keyboard, sadly.

Please do you know any other method that I can try to solve this?

I don't know what to do.

 

Also reinstall the Samsung graphics drivers.

John

 

I've installed the graphics driver 9.17.10.2857 and nothing changed.

Jhon you think this may be related to the computer's BIOS?

 

You can check in the BIOS setup to see if there is any keyboard backlight control but there isn't any in my NP90X3B (nearest equivalent notebook in my collection).

Does the keyboard backlight feature in Easy Settings? You should find it on the General tab.

John

 

Yes, have this option available in the Easy Settings but when I try to change the intensity light of the keyboard nothing happens.

That worked perfectly a few weeks ago.

 

Note that there is also the ambient light sensor which might be keeping the backlight turned off.

I put black tape over the sensor (it's next to the power light) so my notebook thinks it is in permanent darkness and the backlighting stays on.

John

 

I know, I put my hand over the sensor and only the screen brightness adjusts to ambient brightness.

I have windows 7, but after that I've tried installing drivers win 7 and win 8 and nothing ...

 

I seem to recall that Best Buy sold some variants of NP700Z5C or NP700Z5A which skimped on certain features, including Keyboard Backlight. Could that be what you got?

However, my memory is foggy on this, and I am not 100% sure. I tried to Google it, but did not find any conclusive evidence.

 

No, I bought mine in Lojas Americanas here in Brazil, and backlit keyboard was working perfectly until I uninstall the Easy Settings by Revo Uninstaller.

Damn, why i did it.

 

OK, got it. I just read back to your first post, and I see now that backlight was indeed working originally.

I think that Revo Uninstaller was too aggressive and removed other hooks (beyond just Easy Settings) that are necessary for Easy Settings to do its thing. But I do NOT think that it could have hurt the BIOS or hardware.

You could try and re-install the drivers listed in this guide (Chipset in particular) and see if that finally gets Easy Settings working again.

Otherwise you may be looking at a re-install (use that same guide) or restoring the factory installation (boot F4 if your Recovery is still intact). I realize that can be a lot of work for a seemingly small thing. But there is no knowing how deep that Revo tool messed things up.

 

I did a complete recovery and I could not make the light turns on again, I will take my notebook for technical assistance for them to verify what can be done.

Thank very much guys!

 

Guys, I'm back asking help. Still coundn't bring the keyboard light back, I think the Revo Unistaller messed up regedit ... I'm sad.


Please does anyone know what I can do to try to resolve this?

 

If you're saying backlight still doesn't work, even after a factory restore from Recovery, then I think you may be right that something really is broken. But how an uninstaller could physically damage the computer is puzzling to me.

You also mentioned you were going to take it to service. What did they have to say?

 

Hi Dannemand! I did a hard unistallation as administrator, and the program erased all traces of the Easy Settings, I do not know why the light stopped working after reinstallation ...

Technical assistance wanted to replace the keyboard, but I had to get the notebook back because of school work.

 

Thank you for the update.

Assuming the problem really is a defect keyboard backlight, replacing the keyboard makes sense. But like you, I am puzzled how this could happen simply from uninstalling Easy Settings.

The only other explanation I can think of is (as you suggested too) that the BIOS had gotten messed up by that Revo Uninstaller you used. Did you try to restore BIOS settings to default (after booting F2)? You can also try the Battery Reset procedure described in John's opening post of our BIOS update thread.

Finally there is is the option of rolling back to an earlier BIOS, then updating again to the latest. That is a drastic and somewhat risky procedure, with no guaranteed outcome. Read about it in our BIOS rollback thread, but please study the entire thread first and make sure you know what you are doing.

That's all I can think of -- other than letting Samsung Service or a local repair shop deal with.

 

Dannemand, thanks for the help mate! I will read the threads to try to understand a little better.

 

Typically the "Hotkey" driver controls the laptop keyboard features like backlit keys. Something like a large update (e.g. new Windows version) could require an updated hotkey driver. Not all laptops are the same so each Hotkey driver is different as the manufacturers will be different. Check "Programs and Features" to see your version and publisher. Mine is "Hotkey 7.0026", publisher of "Notebook", size of 26.4 MB.

Take note of what you currently have and search for the latest version for your current operating system.

Note - I had issues with overwriting the old version so you may need to delete the old hotkey driver before installing the new one like I had to.

Hope this helps - Good Luck.

 

@allankremer: Welcome to NBR, and thank you for sharing that post.

On Samsung laptops, the hotkey module is part of a larger bundle called Easy Settings (for Win7) and Settings (for Win8.x). There is no way to update from one to the other, since their internal designs are different. So users updating from Win7 to Win8.x have to uninstall Easy Settings and install Settings.

We have a thread dedicated to discussing this (linked below) although the subject often comes up in individual threads as well.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/729139-settings-easy-settings-what-you-need-know.html

There are many different versions around, and (in the case of Settings) the newest is not always the best, depending on what features you look for. All Samsung drivers and utilities must be obtained through SW Update since Samsung stopped posting them on their website several years ago.