Dell Vostro 3468, Windows 10 and a Keyboard that does not Function

Its been few years that all my laptops have been Dell. Its my fourth laptop from Dell. The affinity with Dell started many years ago when Dell came out with its on site support and parts replacement.

Before that I had an HP and Compaq laptops.

They worked fine but it was a big headache for me to go and submit it to a service center.

I am talking about about 15 years back when the guys at the service centers use to have I am not at  your service attitude.

The service centers for mobiles carry that attitude even today.

Dell vostro laptop 3468 was available at a bargain price of Rs 24000 during New Year Sale on Amazon.

It cam loaded with Ubuntu and worked fine for some time.

But then my inexperience with Ubuntu showed up and I purchased a Windows 10.

I had already been working with Windows 10 in my previous laptops and did not want Windows 7 which the vendor would have installed for almost nothing.

After Windows installation, after few weeks, the keyboard of the laptop started behaving just like those guys at the service center.

I am not at your service.

The keyboard started behaving erratically. It lagged behind, it missed letters randomly and intermittently. At one moment it worked fine while at other time it behaved as if it got choked and failed to register pounding.

A dysfunctional keyboard is a big headache. You are not able to write correct spellings.  You are not able to type in correct passwords. The whole purpose of owning a laptop is crashed.

I tried with USB keyboard. It worked every time. But it is very cumbersome to work with external keyboard touch pad every time. It is messy and covers whole table table.

What is the Issue?

After few days of dance, I started searching for solution for keyboard issues with windows 10 Dell laptop. I was appalled to see the number of complaints. And the problem was not limited to Dell laptops. It was spread across machines of all kinds.

People had their keyboard totally non responsive, jumping cursors and what not.

Solutions I tried

First of all, there is no clear cut solution. There is plethora of solutions offered with each problem.

In short, these were the solutions offered

Updating the drivers

Most likely, the issue is of incompatibility and less of hardware. So updating all the drivers is recommended. Dell provides easy way to locate and update drivers from its site. I am sure other companies would be doing the same.

I updated the drivers.

Nothing Happened.

Uninstalling Internet Explorer

Few guys reported that if you uninstall internet explorer, it helps as it has a compatibility issue.

I uninstalled that.

Nothing happened.

Reducing touchpad Sensitivity

This is official Microsoft solution. Probably related to incompatibility again but did not work.

Called Support

I called customer care and the guy as quite helpful. He checked language settings in the Windows and suggested me to change the language from English {US} to English {India}.

You can reach this settings from control panel or via Cortana search box by entering language setting.

I am not sure what happened but the laptop keyboard started behaving, mostly. The erratic behavior reduced though did not go completely.

Then came the Fall.

Fall Creators Update and Berserk Keyboard

I worked on the system for about a month. It did remind me that everything is not as it should be but for most of the time, I was able to work.

Then Windows updated itself. Windows 10 is very unique animal. It updates itself a lot and with every update it sends your machine topsy turvy.

With Fall update, my keyboard went berserk. Refused to respond.

It would type if I pressed it hard and slowly but with normal speed of typing it missed whatever and whenever it pleased.

The intermittent nature was still there. When it worked, it worked. When it did not, you could not make it work.

I Called Support Again

This time the guy remotely updated my BIOS, the drivers and everything he could.

For first two days, the laptop worked marvelously.

Then it went berserk again.

I called Dell again and requested for in person diagnostics to look and ensure if it was a hardware issue [It probably is not but you never know.]

Just received the call  that guy is coming in one hour. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Switched back to Old machine

For a while I have collected the data from Vostro and I am back to my old Inspiron. At least it types.

Meanwhile, the guy came and changed the keyboard.

And the problem persists.

I am being suggested to redo the Windows.

It is something I do not like and I am just postponing it.

May be I would choose a vendor rather than wasting my time on it. Its so time consuming. Do Windows and then drivers and then fetch all the programs and install them. get their keys and verify them.

Would take more than 3 hours.

One question that does not leave mind is could a future update solve this issue.

Let us see.