Hi all,

About a month ago my laptop was standing outside and it began to rain, I got it inside, but the keyboard was malfunctioning.

I simple connected a USB keyboard and the problem was fixed, but I don't really like the solution.

When I try to use the normal keyboard, the keyboard gives a wrong output. For example, with the "a", it gives "qa", and with the "s", it gives "w2s"

I wonder if this could be software-mapped.. So I can use my normal keyboard again.

I'm using Fedora 8

Tom

Hi,
it *is* possible that no harm has come to the electronics with short circuits, oxidation etc. A short circuit could cause any amount of problems and very hard to trace down. There is a film to protect bare metal and the keyboard doesn't actually work by connecting metal parts, only registering high or low resistance between films/layers (Sorry but my english doesn't allow me to explain it any clearer!). If You are lucky it is only a mechanical problem. Maybe some goo, dust, cigarette ashes, hair and other stuff has been shifted around and causing keys to register double or triple. I would suggest using it a lot, thereby once again moving around any particles. Maybe even clean it out with a vacuum cleaner (carefully), and then open up the keyboard and use tops, liqour, try all "dry" methods first.

I have myself on occation had cups of coffe and beer washed over a laptop and they all survived it. I had to quickly remove power source and the battery, turn them upside down, dry wipe off as much as possible and place them relatively close to a moderate heat source. On the other hand, I haven't had the same luck with cell phones...

/Lakris

well, I have already tried those things, but they don't work.. That's why I'm wondering whether there's an other solution..

Yeah the best thing is to instantly remove power, turn the device upside-down and shake it to remove excess water. Do not apply power for a few days, including batteries and let the device dry out. Why not replace the keyboard ? Laptop keyboards are normally super easy to swap out !!

I agree with the poster above me, newer cell phones are super sensitive to water. The older ones were way more forgiving, I dropped an old Nokia in a parking lot, it literally sat in a puddle of water for an hour in the rain and I could see it was still on. That cell phone worked till I retired it. The newer one died while sitting in the yard and caught a little bit of morning dew and never came back on.

Might try contact cleaner or 100% alcohol (not the drug store stuff) to attempt to remove any stuff in the keyboard. No magic software will fix your keyboard.

What I meant is that I've already tried all of those. The only way to fix this problem probably is to manipulate the keyboard driver to handle these new keycodes. Isn't there a way to do this?

Tom

8042.c would be the place to start. This is where the system decodes the keyboard scan codes.

Instinctively, trying to change the coding sounds like the worst way to go. As soon as you change it, one of the keys will recover--or another one will change.

If you can't recover with some combo of alcohol rinse, compressed air, and perhaps the gentle application of hot air from a hair dryer, then just replace it. Also, I would remove the keyboard to clean it---no reason to expose the rest of the HW to these measures.

Yes, I agree that trying to kludge software to overcome a hardware problem in this case is not the best solution.

I don't know about laptop keyboards, but when I spilled a full glass of red wine into a desktop keyboard, I dismantled it totally and washed it in warm soapy water letting it dry fully before rebuilding.

Shame I had to do it again for the same reason not too long after

Still works OK though!

Wolfie.