Dell Laptop

[IainK]

My brother has a Dell Studio 17 laptop and basically, there's a problem with the keyboard, when playing games the keys often stick until you press that key again, he has contacted Dell when the problem first appeared (about this time last year) and they remotely re-installed vista for him.

however it continued so when he got back from uni this summer he sent it back to them (he couldn't live without his laptop while at uni) and they replaced the keyboard and palmrest, pretty ecent customer support so far, however the problem persisted.

He phoned them up AGAIN and they re-installed vista AGAIN which quite predictably did not correct the problem, he phoned them up again today and here's basically what they said 'the studio 17 laptop is not designed for gaming'- despite on the american dell site them stating that it's designed for 'Hardcore gaming' (they wouldn't listen because it's the american site)

They then blame it on the graphics card which is TOTALLY ridiculous imho since the keyboard signal goes NOWHERE near the GPU (it's a mobility 3650), however they know they can just blame it on an unsupported GPU (since mobile versions are never officially supported) and the average joe wouldn't know any better.

He and I do however, but we're stuck for options, it's only a small fault, however we feel that we can't let Dell get away with this one, what would you suggest doing next?

thanks for bothering to read it :)

[PMM]

Not sure what to suggest - but for info heat is normally the enemy with poor designed keyboards the slim designs can yield to a warping effect on metal expansion of the keyboard structure and in-turn causes a sticky key effect or manifests in the keyboards with the ickle joystick type mouse button not moving the cursor and getting progressively harder to use.

Obviously gaming gets the laptop toasty as it pushed the CPU & GfX card so in my eyes replacing the keyboard panel is required ((Simple task)).

equally also in the heat relational.. the under pinnings of the laptop may press on in in certain zones more than others that could account as to why its a certain key /keys.

[IainK]

according to my brother it isn't certain keys, its if you hold down D to strafe saideways and you take your finger off it'll carry on strafing until you press D again, the keyboard etc has already been replaced with no effect, we've searched the internet and no-one elsehas experienced this problem so i think it has to be a hardware failure, like the otherboard or somthing where the keyboard input goes to

[sniperdude]

dell are a pain to deal with they wont listen

even if you get a manager on the phone to agree that changing vista isn't going to help
when you send it back the repair centre will ignore what the manager said and reinstall vista and send it back to you

i would put in a proper complaint to Dell head office see what happens

[PMM]

It will be the keyboard ... basically what will be occuring is when you press down on the key you compress this little rubber bit underneth (In a bit of way think suction cup)

what is not occurring is it springing back up / re-forming its original shape it is sort of pressing in too far as to stick.

Repressing the key is just giving a help re-nudge to flex it and allow it to pop back up.

See pic... http://www.iraqigeek.com/images/keyb_repair/keyb_12.jpg

Basically the Top hat shaped pit of rubber in the middle.

Its a very cheap way of doing things when space matter over a conventional spring loaded type design more common with proper keyboards.

[jonbanjo]

They then blame it on the graphics card which is TOTALLY ridiculous imho since the keyboard signal goes NOWHERE near the GPU (it's a mobility 3650), however they know they can just blame it on an unsupported GPU (since mobile versions are never officially supported) and the average joe wouldn't know any better.

I'm puzzled by this. Are they saying that as they use an unsupported (presumably on the OS they installed) GPU, it is not their fault/liability?

[IainK]

so is it still a bit enough fault to force dell to sort it out, especially as they advertise it (in america) as a hardcore gaming machine?

they're saying that games arn't working properly (the keys are sticking) because the ATI radeon Mobility 3650 isn't officially supported by the games... ABSOLUTELY ridiculous
^ following on from that, does anyone know a game that DOES OFFCIALLY support mobile GPUs so we can break down that argument?

[PMM]

The easy test is open notepad... use the key as you would in game

I.e. hold it down with the same sort of force/pressure you would in game

if it repeats its self and out puts a string of dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd dddddddddddddddddd

Its the key and nothing else... try it a few times maybe load up a amp to get the laptop warmed up before hand.

[IainK]

i've just asked my brother and he's already tried this, and it works normally, it's ONLY when gaming that it happens :/

[PMM]

The game would have to receive an input of a character many times over for that effect.

Games tend to use realtime input - so for that effect to happen a game would have a buffered input but a repress of the d key would not terminate as it would not understand a new 'd' from the previous 'd'.

Again we are back at the keyboard - the controlling Integrated chip may buffer keystrokes - a prolonged pressing of the key could fill up the keyboard buffer to an extent that once you release the key the effect continues but again re-pressing the key would not terminate it would send out the keystrokes in its buffer until empty.

Personally no other device can transmit keycodes - bar a software bug and a isolated game getting in a loop you would not expect to see same result spread to other games.

I have had the key effect myself on laptops and in all instances its the fault of the key.

I am open minded enough to accept a game related bug but if its more than one game I can only see the keyboard as being the source of the issue or its associated controller.

[IainK]

since the keyboard has been replaced i too think it's the controller, would it be reasonable to ask for this (i premuse the whole motherboard) be replaced?

[PMM]

It should manifest itself in a text editor as mentioned be it controller or key.

Maybe play the game until it starts happening terminate then open 'Notepad' and see what occurs or better still have notepad open during game play then task switch to it when the game is in the stuck d senerio.

For info people tend to be a tad more forceful with the keys during gameplay than average typing without realising from the adrenaline of the game play.

[snakedoc]

I suggest for gaming he gets himself another usb keyboard to plug in. Perhaps a large screen monitor while he is at it.