Question Dell Latitude E7440 very odd keyboard issue

Jan 15, 2020
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For the life of me I can't figure this one out ...

I had been having power issues on my E7440 laptop so I ordered a replacement motherboard off eBay. All went fine, powered on, but I found a grouping of letters on the keyboard wasn't working (W,E,S,D,X,C and some function keys). That's odd, I think, maybe I damaged the connector. I swapped in a known working keyboard, same letters not working. OK, now I assume the motherboard I got off eBay has a damaged keyboard connector and started a return.

Now I decide to swap back in my old motherboard for the time being. Got it all hooked up and ... THE SAME KEYS DON'T WORK. Keep in mind prior to the motherboard swap all the keys were working fine. I again tried my other keyboard, same result. Put that keyboard back in the other E7440 laptop I have and the keys are all fine.

Anyone have ANY ideas about what might be going on here? I can think of only 2 possibilities:

  1. While installing the motherboard I messed up the connector and when reinstalling the old motherboard I did the same random thing that broke it again. (This seems unlikely to me, I've installed motherboards many times, although this is my first laptop.)
  2. There's some random issue on the chassis that is preventing the keyboard from functioning properly. (But again, it wasn't happening prior to the initial motherboard swap I performed.)

I would love any suggestions to try; I'm not returning the replacement motherboard yet in case I can resolve this keyboard issue.
 
Could be the cable got damaged when you installed the new motherboard. There are really only a few things to do, try another keyboard or another motherboard. But you should be able to get a used working 7440 for not much more than the cost of a motherboard.