Asus q550lf keyboard b n space arrow keys not working

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krashton1

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Jul 11, 2014
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Hello, I just bought this laptop a few weeks ago, an ASUS q550lf.

Regardless, certain keys will occasionally work and occasionally not work. Those keys are b, n, enter, space, left shift, left control, up, and down arrow keys and maybe some others that I have missed.

Normally I am very tech savvy but I can not figure out what is going wrong with this laptop.

When the keys are not functioning properly, it appears that they will not work unless I press them and leave them pressed for 3 or 4 seconds, then it will register a single click.

I do not believe that the problem could be dirt in the keys because this laptop is still almost brand new. I have not yet tried attaching an external keyboard but I would assume it would work, I will check it tonight.

The keyboard usually will not function for about 70% of the time it seems.
 
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Hey guys. I'm currently in the middle of trying to find a proper solution. I think I have an answer.
I am currently typing on my q550lf. About 5 minutes ago, I could not get my " Spacebar, N, B, L-Arrow, L-Shift, Enter (etc)," to give me ANY life. I'm a hardware guy and pretty mechanical. I was convinced it was a bus line that may have become severed. I called ASUS and Newegg to see if I could get any advice or maybe a hand out. No luck.
My wife insisted that it was DRIVERS. I didn't listen. I mean, seeing others have the exact spot on problem only makes me think its hardware!

I'm running this post long, mostly as a test- The keyboard STILL WORKS! What was the answer?
How many of y'all are running the original HDD? I put an SSD in...
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Sorry I know I said multiple times I would post pics showing why it is a manufacture problem and there is no "work around" no drivers, no nothing. You will see in the following pictures. Sorry about quality I had busted the glass over the lens on my phone and its a lot of work, like removing the motherboard work to take new pics.

Yes, this issue is Asus problem, small amount of quality control would of fixed it, just a small amount, but as they have shown me and you can read above in the post with the chat log with Asus.

Asus Q550LF keyboard
Good Rivets
http://tinypic.com/r/335eg0i/8
In this pic you see how the keyboard is supposed to attach with the top plate. See how well formed all but one of those Rivets are? Look at the one bad one, contrast is there.Good ones are thick, round and flat. The poorly pressed ones are thin, weak and bend easy curling them away from the metal plate that holds the keyboard hardware in place. If you look you will notice that the malformed rivets are only in specific areas, namely the areas where the keys do not work. I had to send my old keyboard back to Asus undamaged or they would of charged me 80 dollars for the advanced RMA, I would of really liked to have been able to disassemble the old one and see exactly where the issue arose.

Right above the touch pad, you know, where the space bar is. The non working spacebar
http://tinypic.com/r/2pqj621/8
Broken off from its base, other ones in that area where not fairing well. This laptop at the time was less then 8 months old, issue started very early, first 3 months. Would be fine for weeks then wouldnt work for a minute or two then work then not then not...

NOTE: If you happen to try and replace your keyboard the one Asus sends comes with none of the mounting hardware and none of the metallic tape. Carefully peel that tape off and keep it. I just finished another semester in college with this laptop, peeled off and re stuck tape and all. Still working perfect for just over 4 months. Thats longer then the original one did. I'm using it right now.

http://tinypic.com/r/v5hkwy/8

Sorry about the lack of focus, still plainly visible, compare to first photo.

Side by side comparison. 3 good, 3 garbage. *coughasusgarbagecough excuse me.

http://tinypic.com/r/256ecs2/8

It was funny, I would call Asus, the online service flat refused to replace the keyboard saying it was not user serviceable, which it isnt I guess technically. I did not break or undo a single "void if broken" sticker though through the whole process. I think there is only one. Some will want to say that removing the bottom tray to access the ram and whatnot voids the warranty. Its not in the book, it says no where on the machine, its even advertised as having an expansion slot for a SDD drive (but oh hey, bye bye warranty, no...) IF it says it online somewhere, that is not on the customer, that is on Asus, and non-binding, dont let them pull that. The actual warranty slip that came with it makes no mention.

Now you can see what your working with. Goodluck.
 
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Yes, the support desk response is horrible and claims this is not a "known issue" when clearly it is. Also the keyboard component is not available to purchase right now. I will post more once something happens. Thanks for letting me know that cleaning the contacts does not work.
 
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Hello everyone,
I bought the same laptop in August 2013, and probably after about 10 months it started to mess up agian. So, I went back to bestbuy and geeksqaud took the laptop for about 2-3 weeks. I tracked it the whole time it was with them and they "worked" on it for literally 1 day. When I got the laptop back it started to work again, and after another 2 weeks it stopped working. By the time it stopped working my warranty had already expired. I've been carrying around a Dell keyboard with me whenever I needed to do work. Last night I was looking for new laptops and out of nowhere my keyboard starting working again. At around 1 am it stopped working, and this morning it started working again. Don't know how long its going to last, but I'll keep you guys posted. Hopefully it will continue to work, but I doubt it.
 
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A month ago my Q550LF began to exhibit the same symptoms that most people in this forum have: b, n, alt, spacebar, 0, enter and some other keys not being responsive and having to press them really hard to make them work.

As I was reading through all the responses I came to the conclusion that maybe the issue is that after some time using the laptop, the conductive sheets inside the keyboard unit begin to separate because a bad manufacturing process (the loose rivets everyone was talking about). So I decided to open the laptop and check if there was anything to do to fix it.

The process is somewhat long, but nothing really complicated. Just lots of screws to remove and some delicate ribbons to detach. After all that, I had access to the backside of the keyboard unit. So I just cut some sheets of card stock, piled them up (I used 3 sheets one over another) and cut them to size to fit the keyboard unit backside. Taped them in place, and reinstalled the motherboard and the other components.

The sheets fill the gap between the MB and the keyboard, and force the keyboard unit to stay compressed. That worked like a charm once the laptop was fully reassembled. Just worked all afternoon and no missed keystrokes at all.

Finally, for a more permanent solution, I decided to replace the card stock with some eva foam sheets. I redid the process, replaced the card stock with the eva, and reassembled the laptop. It worked (haven't tested much, but no keystrokes missed yet) and the feel of the keyboard is practically stock (with the card stock, if felt a lot more rigid).

I think this could be a solution for those not interested in a costly keyboard replaced that at the end could exhibit the same manufacturing issue.

Hope this tip works for those having issues with this otherwise nice laptop.
 
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Hello, Im really interested in carrying out your solution. However, Im not that good with hardware. Would you be able to provide a guide to carry this out? Thanks!
 
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I had the same bn etc key prob. I finally opened the 550 guessed that the widest ribbon was the keyboard which it was. Carefully pulled it out. Ran an eraser 1 time over the contacts. Put it back in.,keyboard perfect now. While I had the back case off. I took the opportunity to clean everything with a air gun.most important are the vents and fan. All very dirty.
 
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hey, did you remove only the back cover? or the motherboard?:??:
 
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***Simple Solution*** -- temp solution. Permanent solution see 2nd post:

Hold your function key and press the "num lock" labeled button up above your F keys (I think the scroll lock in white writing, num lock in blue). This will normally happen if you have used an external keyboard and turned num lock on. When you disconnect the keyboard it stays locked....or you might have just accidentally turned it on yourself

http://www.tomsguide.com/forum/86323-35-asus-keyboard-issue
 
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I have same problem until 3 weeks. ı delete and sutep atk program and became everything is corrent but one day or two same problem again again..... ı thing problem is atk and widows 8 updates. ı cant fınd yet
 
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Hey everybody,

I've had this laptop for the past year, and it's been really stellar...except for two things: if I turn the laptop on when it's not connected to a power source, it turns on its fan full blast, being much louder than I would like it to be and putting a major drain on the battery. I have not figured out a solution to this part yet.

The other problem is the one mentioned in this thread - my spacebar, arrow, b, n, and enter keys not working. It seems to work and stop working totally at random, but they totally stopped for me about two weeks ago. It is really annoying to have to carry around a USB keyboard in my bag so that I can work on homework when I'm at school. I watched the above Youtube video, where some guy postulates his theory that a crimp/crease in the keyboard ribbon cable is the cause of the issue. I bent the ribbon cable back along the crease so that it was folded the exact opposite way when I replaced the battery, and voila! It's started working again. I will keep you posted if it stops working, but I'd started to believe that those keys were just never going to work again. So, if you are as fed up with this problem as I have been, try out the video and see if it helps. Let us know how it goes for you.
 
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Fix the fan do a bios update. There is 2 or 3 updates specifically for the fan. Info is limited but the updates say "fan fix when nv.." My fan would go to 100% and never throttle down, until a full off and start cycle. Bios fixed it 2nd time.

Problem with the ribbon cable "fix" is that, if that is the case then you have a broken cable with limited connectivity, bending it differently is not going to fix the break. It may push the pieces together for a while but it will happen again, if you are still under warranty make them send you a new one. I would not however send Asus my latop, especially after it took the. so long to just send a keyboard when it says 24 to 48 hours as you put in your credit card info. That and other customer complaints about being without their computer for months and Asus giving them the brush off
 
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I tried out his video and it worked for me as well. Thank you thank you thank you! No longer will people in my classes look at me and undoubtedly wonder if I just prefer my big, loud external keyboard over the one on the laptop. Anyways... this took me roughly 10 minutes and I have not had a problem since. I will update this if I develop an issue.
 
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I can also vouch for the video that joseph_labonte had linked!

I own a N550JV which is just a over a little a year old, and just recently had issues with the B, N, Space, Enter, CTRL, Shift, 0 and arrow keys not working. The solution in the video worked 100% with little effort!

The insides of the N550JV are very similar to that in the video and will work for us N550 users, just letting everyone know!

My cable was in fact creased in one area pretty hard but simply unbent like in the video and all works fine, and currently typing right now with the laptop!

Thanks everyone
 
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I've been experiencing the same problem for several weeks. N550JV, Windows 8.1 64 bit and SSD. ASUS customer support didn't have an answer but asked me to replace the keyboard. Several days ago my keyboard was suddenly back to normal. No idea why.

 
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I have a q550lf and had this issue for a few days. I thought it was drivers also because I recently upgraded to Windows 10 but after downloading the proper drivers and bios updates there was still no fix. I had opened the laptop before to install an SSD in the disk tray and had disconnected the battery. Under the battery is the ribbon cable from the motherboard to the keyboard. There's two ribbon cables and the keyboard one is the wide one with the white sticker. The issue is when the battery is screwed in tight against this cable, it creases it and does not allow signals to travel across. I lifted the cable from the battery tray and folded it against the motherboard instead of inside the battery tray. It's kind of just sitting on top of the battery tray but once you screw the cover back on, it doesn't matter where it is. The point is I booted my computer and typed this entire solution with a fully functional keyboard.

 
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Hey, I just had that problem in my ASUS R510C. Keys in the bottom row would not properly work. The problem ended up being the keyboard bus was a bit loose, or with dust or something.

I unscrewed all the screws, took out the HDD, until I could reach the motherboard. I disconnected 3 cables coming from the keyboard and touchpad to the motherboard, removed the dust inside, and plugged them again. I screwed everything again, and it is working as before now.

I hope it helps!
 
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i/ seem to have a /similar /problem, as you can/ /s/e/e,/ my computer, as i am typing, begins to insert more and more forward slashes(at least it stopped for now) even when i am using a usb keyboard, until it eventually gets stuck. in addition, on startup, for about 10 minutes after i log in, the windows key just randomly gets pressed, making it practically impossible even to use usb or onscreen(touch) keyboard. i have only had this laptop about a year, and i clean the keyboard regularly with compressed air and (in extreme cases) alcohol on a q-tip or a slightly damp paper towel. :kaola: this is pretty much how am reacting right now.
 
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This fixed my problem!! With my laptop turned on, I could actually press the ribbon cable on it's fold to see my keys working and when I released it and let it go back into it's fold my keys stopped working instantly!!

I had to put some tape around the fold to keep straight, didn't put it back under the battery and is now hanging loose. I have a N550JV
 
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