Laptop keyboard repair is one of the more common jobs performed on laptops, it's also one of the easier repairs to carry out providing the following hasn't happened.
A spill of anything but water on a keyboard will 9 times out of 10 leave you in a situation that involves replacing the keyboard all together.
Keyboards are manufactured in such a way that leaves little to no room to clean out messy spills.
Basically any liquid containing sugar (soft drinks, beer, wine, coffee or tea) are bad news...
A couple of laptop keyboard repair do’s and don’ts in the event of a spill..
Laptop Keyboard Repair
DON’T panic. Panic makes us do stupid things, think before you react.
DON’T use a hairdryer to dry out a spill...melted keys are hard to type with.
DON’T tilt the machine upside down or on its side (if you do feel the need it's better to tilt it to the side that houses the CDROM as the CDROM area inside the machine has less components on it than the mainboard).
DO switch the machine off immediately and resist switching it back on until you're certain the spill has dried. Survey the damage after you've dried it out. At this point you could remove the keyboard and try the machine using an external keyboard to see if anything else has been affected.
Laptop Keyboard Repair
The ribbon cable can also be located on the front edge of the keyboard depending on the age and model of the laptop you have.
Note the keyboard holder (thin strip of plastic) that sits on the top edge of the laptop keyboard needs to be removed to get access to the screws holding the keyboard down.
Most of the current laptop keyboards are like the diagram below.
Laptop Keyboard Repair
Traditionally a spill will kill a keyboard or at best at least some function will be lost. I have only ever been successful with a laptop keyboard repair that involved a water spill, anything else normally results in a tragic loss and putting your old faithful keyboard to rest.. RIP.
How to replace a laptop keyboard
Keyboard removal is relatively simple, most keyboards are held in place with a couple of screws, and in some models, also a couple of screws that may need to be removed from the base of the unit. A quick call to your local authorized laptop computer repairer should help to determine what screws need to be removed (if they know their stuff).
The keyboard connector is something that needs a little care when unplugging, if you are too heavy handed and damage the connector in any way you may even damage the mainboard also which can cause a world of pain.. be careful.
Laptop Keyboard Repair
In order to release the keyboard ribbon cable ease the connector edge upwards only about 2 or 3 millimetres, the ribbon should now slip out with ease. The refitting of the keyboard once cleaned or replaced is just done in reverse.
Broken off some keys??
Whoops, these are a difficult one to fix and once again often end in having to replace the keyboard entirely. Some very small plastic mounting arms hold the keys in place and are often broken, either that or the little clips that the mounting arms click into break. It's handy to have or get a hold of an old keyboard of the same type in order to poach the parts you need.
You may need some tweezers and a steady hand to fix these. The best thing I can suggest is to gently remove one of the other keys to see exactly how the mounting arms sit, once you have an idea of how it should look grab those tweezers and be patient, it may take some time.
We will soon have some detailed photos showing how these are assembled, until then remember to be patient and gentle.
If you seek professional advice regarding your laptop keyboard repair, the repairer will probably try to sell you a new keyboard complete with hefty labour charge to fix this for you. With the tips we have given you here, you can do your own laptop keyboard repair, fit it yourself and pocket the savings.
How to disassemble a laptop keyboard
How to disassemble a laptop keyboard? Can I take it apart and clean liquid spill? Is it easy to repair a damaged keyboard?
First of all, you’ll have to remove the laptop keyboard.
STEP 1.
- Remove sticky tape securing the keyboard cable to back of the keyboard.
STEP 2.
- Part of the keyboard cable is glued to the keyboard. Carefully separate the cable from the keyboard.
STEP 3.
- Start peeling off the aluminum protective film
STEP 4.
- Remove the protective film.
- After the protective film is removed it’s really hard to attach it back to the keyboard because it’s deformed.
STEP 5.
- Most laptop keyboards have some kind of plastic separators.
- These separators secured on the back of the keyboard.
- Plastic pins are melted on the back of the keyboard and retain separators in place.
- Push all plastic pins though wholes on the keyboard.
- Start removing the separator.
- The plastic separator has been removed.
STEP 6.
- Now you’ll have to remove all key caps.
- Before you start removing key caps, make a picture or xerocopy of the keyboard so you know the order in which keys are attached to the keyboard.
- In order to remove the key cap carefully lift it up with your fingers.
- Remove the key cap so the hinge underneath stays connected to the keyboard.
- Some big keys have a different design.
- In addition to the hinge, some big keys (Back space or Space bar for example) might have an additional support bracket.
- Remove the key cap with the support bracket. As you see, the key hinge stays connected to the keyboard.
STEP 7.
- Some laptop keyboards might have blank covers on the left and right sides from the up arrow key.
- Lift up and remove the blank cover.
- All keyboard key caps and plastic separators have been removed.
STEP 8.
- Now you can start removing key hinges – key lifting mechanisms.
- Carefully separate the key hinge from the keyboard.
- Each key hinge has two parts – external and internal pieces.
- When you remove the hinge, try to keep these parts connected to each other the same way they are connected on the keyboard.
- If the external and internal pieces got separated, you can assemble them together.
- On the following picture you see the lifting mechanism (hinge) assembled.
- If you following this guide to repair the keyboard, I would recommend to keep all hinges in the right order.
STEP 9.
- The keyboard has two sheets laying one on the top of another.
- Remove the sheet with silicone (or rubber) nipples.
STEP 10.
- Remove the second sheet with traces.
- Both sheets have been separated from the keyboard base.
STEP 11.
- The sheet with traces has two layers and all traces are running between these layers.
STEP 12.
- In order to access and repair traces you’ll have to separate to layers from each other.
- The keyboard has been disassemble.
- As you see it’s not easy to disassemble a laptop keyboard and even harder to put it back together.
- Is it worth repairing? Probably not. These days you can find a brand new laptop keyboard very cheap.
- If you successefuly fixed your keyboard, please share your experience! Let us know what was wrong and how you repaired the problem.
