My dog had big strong paws and my GF likes making her jump around acting goofy. It makes both her and the dog happy, so be it. That is until the dog jump on the keyboard om my Dell Latitude and fractured the Ctrl key.
That is (was) my daily driver so I ordered a replacement keyboard from Amazon, I have prime so 2 day free delivery and good return policy makes Amazon my first choice.
Here we go. For those who do laptop repairs replacing a keyboard is like rebuilding a system from parts, everything must come out, we are talking 30+ screws must be removed and many power/video/etc. connectors must be disconnected.
So everything goes well except maybe the ribbon cables might be a little long, otherwise it's OK or so I thought so I button the system up.
I fire the system up and the backlit keyboard isn't working. Once the system boots up the keyboard doesn't work, poop I must have not seated the ribbon cables in the connectors properly. So I open the computer up, the back cover and the battery. No the ribbon cables are seated correctly but wait! The connectors are on the top of the old keyboard ribbon cable and they are on the bottom of the "exact replacement" of the new keyboard. So I break out the glue and pack up the "replacement" and send it back to Amazon.
What a complete waste of time but after 20+ years of computer repair I learned a new rule for replacement parts before I go crazy installing it and then having to remove it. Turns out the OEM keyboard directly from Dell is $20 plus shipping. Lesson learned for sure!
That is (was) my daily driver so I ordered a replacement keyboard from Amazon, I have prime so 2 day free delivery and good return policy makes Amazon my first choice.
Here we go. For those who do laptop repairs replacing a keyboard is like rebuilding a system from parts, everything must come out, we are talking 30+ screws must be removed and many power/video/etc. connectors must be disconnected.
So everything goes well except maybe the ribbon cables might be a little long, otherwise it's OK or so I thought so I button the system up.
I fire the system up and the backlit keyboard isn't working. Once the system boots up the keyboard doesn't work, poop I must have not seated the ribbon cables in the connectors properly. So I open the computer up, the back cover and the battery. No the ribbon cables are seated correctly but wait! The connectors are on the top of the old keyboard ribbon cable and they are on the bottom of the "exact replacement" of the new keyboard. So I break out the glue and pack up the "replacement" and send it back to Amazon.
What a complete waste of time but after 20+ years of computer repair I learned a new rule for replacement parts before I go crazy installing it and then having to remove it. Turns out the OEM keyboard directly from Dell is $20 plus shipping. Lesson learned for sure!
