Thought this week was going to be a real problem, my Dell Studio 1735 started to act up. There were 3 things that went wrong;
- The touchpad stopped working. Fortunately I had access to a USB mouse, that did in the short term.
- A number of keys on the keyboard would work only on the second or third keystroke.
- The multimedia control panel keys stopped working.
After hours of searching the Dell forums, the Dell knowledge base, and the internet forums I discovered that a large number of users found similar problems with their laptops.
Next stop Dell technical support, so yesterday it was onto the Dell site again and the support service. This is an online chat service, so as I needed a keyboard its onto another PC. There were 3 attempts to get to tech support, first there was no support available, next about fifteen minutes later in a queue of 8. This queue went to a queue of 6 after about 5 minutes, and then fourth after another 30 minutes, too long so had to bomb out . Finally at 1pm straight in, yes straight in. The online service is not too bad, but it looks like an offshore setup, the English interpretation wasn’t brilliant. It was pretty patronising until I informed the agent I was an IT professional. Something the agent said made me think there was a keyboard manufacturing or installation issue.
After a lot of further digging about, and the discussion with Dell technical support a potential solution was identified. The idea was to reseat the keyboard. This involves removing the multimedia control panel, taking out the keyboard and reassembling again. The first step was to locate the service manual from Dell, that’s easy, and the instructions are pretty clear too. Get the service manual at http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/1735/en/SM/keyboard.htm. Whoa!! a step forward, using the diagnostics the keyboard and the touchpad worked normally, but the multimedia keys were still inoperative, but I could live with this.
Dell had arranged to call that evening to check the progress, then again today. Two follow up calls and some useful discussion and help. Top marks to Dell for this.
Just the multimedia control panel to do. It does suggest that the manufacturing and the quality aren’t as good as they could be, maybe not top marks after all.
Thought this week was going to be a real problem, my Dell Studio 1735 started to act up. There were 3 things that went wrong;
- The touchpad stopped working. Fortunately I had access to a USB mouse, that did in the short term.
- A number of keys on the keyboard would work only on the second or third keystroke.
- The multimedia control panel keys stopped working.
After hours of searching the Dell forums, the Dell knowledge base, and the internet forums I discovered that a large number of users found similar problems with their laptops.
Next stop Dell technical support, so yesterday it was onto the Dell site again and the support service. This is an online chat service, so as I needed a keyboard its onto another PC. There were 3 attempts to get to tech support, first there was no support available, next about fifteen minutes later in a queue of 8. This queue went to a queue of 6 after about 5 minutes, and then fourth after another 30 minutes, too long so had to bomb out . Finally at 1pm straight in, yes straight in. The online service is not too bad, but it looks like an offshore setup, the English interpretation wasn’t brilliant. It was pretty patronising until I informed the agent I was an IT professional. Something the agent said made me think there was a keyboard manufacturing or installation issue.
After a lot of further digging about, and the discussion with Dell technical support a potential solution was identified. The idea was to reseat the keyboard. This involves removing the multimedia control panel, taking out the keyboard and reassembling again. The first step was to locate the service manual from Dell, that’s easy, and the instructions are pretty clear too. Get the service manual at http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/1735/en/SM/keyboard.htm. Whoa!! a step forward, using the diagnostics the keyboard and the touchpad worked normally, but the multimedia keys were still inoperative, but I could live with this.
Dell had arranged to call that evening to check the progress, then again today. Two follow up calls and some useful discussion and help. Top marks to Dell for this.
Just the multimedia control panel to do. It does suggest that the manufacturing and the quality aren’t as good as they could be, maybe not top marks after all.
