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Keyboard fault on a new P100 Satellite Pro

post #1 of 14
7/5/06 at 8:22pm
Thread Starter 
My insurance company has supplied me a new P100 after my VAIO was sadly dropped. The keyboard on it missed key strokes left right and center so I had it replaced and the next one was the same. I have never had a problem on laptop keyboards before but thinking it might be me I visited 2 different PC worlds to try their display models and they were both perfect so I assume their must be a batch problem.

My supplier says they can't fault the original so won't replace again and Toshibas "Global Support Center" are useless, they refer the matter to customer services and say they will call back, do they? Do they heck as like.

I am now nearly 2 months into this sorry saga and have a £1200 laptop that is simply unusable. My deepest wish is to have a VAIO back as I am sick to the back teeth of the lack of service and buck passing in Toshiba and its suppliers.

If someone could assist with some suggestions I would be grateful.

Cheers
Mark
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post #2 of 14
7/6/06 at 2:12pm
I know a keyboard problem on M60 nad P100 regarding missing keystrokes on all keys (every once in a while a letter is missing). It can be seen also while auto-repeating as a key is held down - the letters stop appearing periodically.
I didn't get what exactly is wrong with your keyboard, can you try to be more specific?

I've had my keyboard replaced at our local ASP twice, the second time it was partially successful - better than before but still not perfect. Still using an external USB.

I suggest you to demand keyboard replacement at your ASP. It may take some time before the part is available. The operation should not take more than 15 min if you are able to go there yourself and make an appointment in advance. Make sure you check if it is OK before you leave (take some time, it may be difficult to tell sometimes) - our local service personell knew nothing about this problem & didn't have any useful instructions and I think even the Toshiba headquarters may not know what's wrong actually.
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post #3 of 14
7/6/06 at 2:41pm
This may be a shot in the dark, but do you have any "optional" hardware that is not always plugged in. I have seen a similar problem wher a guy had an HP printer/fax at work, where he also had an external keyboard. When he wasn't at work, the printer driver kept trying to talk to the missing printer and keystrokes were dropped. The guy thought the problem was related to the internal keyboard, but it was realy the printer driver.
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post #4 of 14
7/7/06 at 3:48am
Ehm... Definitely can't exclude interference with other devices, but remember that (at least in my case) the problem is specific to two recent Toshiba models, only appears with the built-in keyboard (not the external USB keyboard) and is sometimes cured by keyboard replacement.
My first thought were the Toshiba drivers that are keyboard related (various Fn stuff), but there was no change after removing them all. I also suspected the Toshiba Powes Saver (the driver can be only removed by its setup program), but it is not included with P100 at all. It would be interesting to see what happens after clean reinstall of Windows (not recovery, so that no additional drivers are installed) and then adding drivers & testing the keyboard - I don't have the time for this.
There is a BIOS update for a similar problem for another Satellite model (though some reported that it didn't work).
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post #5 of 14
7/12/06 at 10:08am
Thread Starter 
UPDATE.

Well Toshiba to their credit finally return my call (better late than never) and have taken it in to their service center. The latest update I have is the motherboard is actually the faulty component and is being swapped under warranty.

When I get the machine back with the report I will be speaking in very plain english to my supplier.

Cheers for the replies boys.
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post #6 of 14
7/12/06 at 10:34am
Make sure you test the computer thoroughly before you take it back after repair and please inquire in detail what was done.
Most of the Toshiba ASPs are actually part replacement workshops, they don't actually tend to debug unlisted problems themselves.
The 'keyboard sensitivity' problem has been known for almost a year, but they don't seem to know the cause. If you convince them not to do their most popular "Recovery" procedure because the external keyboard works fine, they will do the "Keyboard replacement". If this doesn't work, they do the "Motherboard replacement" routine. But most probably it is some interrupt or driver problem that nobody cares to debug. They have an admin on the official support forum but his role tends to be limited to filtering out language inappropriate for Toshiba public image.
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post #7 of 14
7/24/06 at 5:42pm
Thread Starter 
Toshiba swapped the motherboard and the keyboard and it is now perfect.

I had a rather interesting conversation with a technician who told me this was a major problem but that Toshiba were waiting for the complaints before they acted as only touch typist usually noticed it so why fix everyones? Poor show really but mine now works so I am smiling.

Cheers for the advice boys/gals...........
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post #8 of 14
7/25/06 at 4:55am
My girlfriend isn't a touch typist and she doesn't even type fast but she was so pissed that she almost threw the ding outta window. Especially because this is being sold for 2000 EUR.
My concern is that it may happen again.
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post #9 of 14
7/26/06 at 12:29pm
Some folks at M$ and Toshiba forums have exterminated this by disabling the HID device driver in Device Manager (the original M$ one that comes with windows) or killing processes that use it. They used Process Explorer to asses the situation.
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post #10 of 14
7/26/06 at 2:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by samo1111
Some folks at M$ and Toshiba forums have exterminated this by disabling the HID device driver in Device Manager (the original M$ one that comes with windows) or killing processes that use it. They used Process Explorer to asses the situation.
Can you elaborate on this and provide a link? I too am having this problem.
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post #11 of 14
7/27/06 at 3:41am
http://forums.computers.toshiba-euro...threadID=14317
It is not a procedure that can be repeated reliably, merely a hint that the fishy thing is probably associated to the HID driver & resulting from a bug in the handling of mice, external keyboards or maybe also some other USB stuff (for example, we've definitely used no external keyboards before the problems began). I wouldn't trust the interpretation completely.
In any case, please report what you tried & the results, even if there are none.

Notice that there seem to be no official responses from Toshiba on their forum, but they do provide some censorship (for example, there are always some sheep suggesting you to wait for a BIOS update, but if one replies that several BIOS updates have appeared within the last year since the problem has been reported for the M60 but none solved this problem, this won't show up).
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post #12 of 14
7/28/06 at 8:30am
Another inconclusive success story in German:
http://www.notebookcheck.com/forum/i...1.html#msg5251
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post #13 of 14
8/2/06 at 9:44am
There is a fresh BIOS update 2.10 for the P100 & a success report resulting from it from a user on the Toshiba forum. Can somebody check if it works & report?
Nothing for the M60 so far.

Update: it worked. No MSN search toolbar installed though.
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post #14 of 14
8/16/06 at 7:38pm
Hi I'm just adding this link to the details for the BIOS 2.10 update, which states that letters were dropped after installing the MSN search toolbar, which update 2.10 supposedly fixed. I guess if you're still having problems after updating to the 2.10 BIOS you could try uninstalling the MSN search toolbar, I can't comment, as I haven't experienced this phenomenon.

Here's the link

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/t...ngdgnj.0&ct=DL
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