Hi, I fixed this - pretty much by accident - but couldn't find it mentioned in any online help, so I thought I'd post this in case it helps someone else.
First the symptoms;
I was having keyboard problems; Some keys needed pressing several times and even then were problematical. The worst culprits were in a circle i-o-l-m-n-h-u, but it spread wider sometimes and sometimes was almost normal. What REALLY didn't help was that most of my logon password is in that circle :( Oh, and the arrow keys were working on a single press basis, holding them down did nothing.
Now it gets stranger; clicking onto the guest account, randomly typing in notepad, then coming back out and into my own account mostly cleared the problem for a while. It SEEMED like hardware mainly, but sometimes like software. I was abroad at the time so I was trying to put up with it until I got home and could call the help desk without needing a mortgage!
Anyway, on the day that I got home, the touchpad completely gave up, completely unresponsive. I'm getting annoyed by this time - the laptop is only 4 months old. I checked the website again and found something for the touchpad - drain the "flea power" (whatever that is). Did that and lo and behold, the keyboard was fixed. Go figure.
So, if anyone has similar problems, try draining the flea power - power down the laptop, disconnect everything, remove the battery, press and hold the power button for at least 5 seconds, then put it all back together and power it up.
I hope that this helps someone.
I came upon your post after much frustration. My Studio 1537 laptop, which is only about 2 months old, was having problems recognizing the keyboard. It was not responding at all and none of the keys were working. However, the touchpad mouse and the Media keys were fine. In addition, when I connected a wireless mouse and USB keyboard, they were working. After exhausting all of my tech. efforts (I checked and changed the easy access settings, uninstalled and reinstalled the driver, restored the system to a point where the keyboard was operating fine, rebooting, etc.) Nothing worked. Reluctantly, I decided to try to chat live with a dell tech. online.....the tech. basically tried all of the things I did. He was very patient too! After about almost an hour of watching him control my system, he said he was going to try to restore the system to the earliest date and that he needed to call me back in an hour. I told him I had tried that before dialing him up...but I said okay....he initiated the restore and then he was gone. Well, that did not work and I was about to jump off the ledge when, with a last ditch effort, I found your post. At this point, I was very annoyed, like you, had done everything, and searched everywhere. Huh? Drain the flea power...? Wouldn't you know, I disconnected everything, shutdown the system, unplugged the ac power, and removed the battery for about a minute or so. I then put the battery back in, plugged in the ac power, powered up and, voila, the keyboard was fixed! Amazing. Just to be sure, I shutdown, rebooted, reconnected my wireless mouse and the USB keyboard, disconnected, etc. and.....it is still working! It appears to be fixed! I hope it stays that way!
Oh my god, you guys won't believe it. Today I started getting the same problems. My keyboard wasn't working at all. so I called the support-center. they told me to reboot and press F8 all the time, to enter this mode, which name i can't tell in english (in german it's "abgesicherter Modus") whatever, of course, it didn't work... i was very annoyed. i read your post and thought to myself: hm okay, lets try this one. i simply plugged in the ac power, because i didn't use it before. and then it worked! Thanks a lot you guys, you saved my day! :-)
Yeah, so glad it worked for you too black_roses!!
I have been having issues with my eject button sticking on (mostly at startup). It usually went away after a few minutes, but itwas annoying never the less.
I contacted Dell tech support and then sent me a new part to replace the quick key touchpad. It was a pain. I had to take the keyboard off and everything.
After I got everything replaced, my volume-up button was stuck on and wouldn't turn off. I restarted, but that didn't help.
I then tried draining the "flea power" after I found this post. Low and behold it worked like a champ!
Thank you soooo much for posting this!
This fix worked perfectly - thank you!
My question is, how common is the reoccurence of this problem? We've only had our Studio 17 for a couple of weeks ... I don't want to get into a situation where I'm having to do this fix on a regular basis!
Mine starts to need it after a couple of months.
I'm told that it's probably a BIOS issue that could be cured by a BIOS upgrade, but that's always risky. As it's an easy fix, I'm not going to risk that. If anyone does, please let me know how it went - if you've still got a computer to post from.
It happended with my Dell Studio 1537 too.
That's wierd because it have new motherboard (installed one week ago).
Problem solved by the same way, unplug all, plug only AC adapter and turn on, after that turn on with everything.
So it can be hardware issue.
Thank you, thank you, and thank you again!!! Had many of the same problems you & some other people had. Used your "flea power" method and all is well again. You saved me SOOO much time & effort. Very grateful
Excellent! Another success! So glad it worked for you too!
Thank you for this advice. I have had intermittent problems with the studio 17 media center "touch" lights, namely the reverse button staying on. Then yesterday, the keboard quit completely. While sitting on the help support hold line, I searched the site and found your post. Went ahead with the call as the "technician" came on just as I found this. He had me power up tapping the F8 key. I asked him what good that would do if the keyboard didn't work? He did not seeme to be able to think outside whatever checklist DELL gave him to follow.
So after that didn't work, true to script he had me power off and power up tapping the F2 key. Then again holding the fucntion key while powering up. I had already tried unistalling the keyboard driver and rebooting to have Windows reinstall, and had tried the F2 already to see if it was a Windows problem or hardware. (But at least I learned about the F8 and Fn keys on boot-up).
So then he tells me he will have an on-site tech come by and replace the keyboard. I told him that would be hard to do since I'm military and currently depolyed, unless there was a technician in Baghdad. His answer was DELL would send a box to my residence. I would ship the laptop back to my residence and have my sife put it in DELL's box and send it in for repair. Then DELL would send it back to my house where my wife would have to send it back out here. I told him I'd hold off until I got home since I don't believe the laptop would survive all of that.
As soon as I hung up, I powered off, pulled that battery for a minute, replace it and powered up, keyboard works fine. I'm just concerned, as others are, how often this happens and is it a precursor to a more serious problem down the road. Say, right after the warranty runs out? Is anyone from DELL actually reading and responding to these??????
Thanks Bricorn, your answer to the dead keys on the keyboard problem was right on..... you saved me a bundle in service fees and I appreciate you taking the time to post.
Thank you so much! I was having the same problem with my keyboard but your fix totally solved my problem!
Give yourself a pat on the back!
I've had the same problems with my Studio this week. Unfortunately I've also had to do the "flea power" fix several times in the past few days. Was this a one-time occurence for everyone else? Is it normal to have to do this about once a day?
luckygehrig,
I don't actually know how often this needs done. I've got in the habit of doing it when I'm taking the laptop anywhere, so I don't actually see the fault. It's certainly months for me though, not days.