Keyboard Issue?

[wesbrown18]

So, I've received my Pandora. Everything seems to work great, except for one thing.


The Fn key. I loaded up Hotfix 5, and tested the keyboard. The Fn key is supposed to light up when you press down on it, isn't it?


So, is there some quick check or repair I can do to the keyboard? The Pandora arrived just as I'm about to leave on a two week trip, or I'd RMA it.

 

[gruso]

Nope, it's not supposed to light up! Is it producing the desired output (ie. can you test it in Mousepad or in a terminal)?

 

[WizardStan]

The fn key doesn't light up.


Press the fn key in combination with any of the others and see if it prints those characters. A good test would be the fn-U and fn-I combos, which will cause the LCD to dim and brighten. Slowly, mind, the script still needs some tweaking.


edit: h34r:

 

[wesbrown18]

The fn key doesn't light up.


Press the fn key in combination with any of the others and see if it prints those characters. A good test would be the fn-U and fn-I combos, which will cause the LCD to dim and brighten. Slowly, mind, the script still needs some tweaking.


edit: h34r:

Tried fn-U and fn-I while having Terminal up and running.


u and i show up in the terminal, but the fn key doesn't seem to be registering.

 

[gruso]

The command you're testing (LCD brightness) won't show up anything special in the terminal, so seeing u and i is normal.


Pick another key that has a blue character on it, like : or / or -


If those characters show up in the terminal, your Fn key is fine.

 

[wesbrown18]

The command you're testing (LCD brightness) won't show up anything special in the terminal, so seeing u and i is normal.


Pick another key that has a blue character on it, like : or / or -


If those characters show up in the terminal, your Fn key is fine.

No go. None of the special characters show up. I noticed this issue at first boot when I was trying to set the clock, and : wasn't working.


Opened up Terminal, tried a bunch of special characters, get the regular white characters rather than the blue characters. Shift key works and gives me capitalized letters.

 

[gruso]

Damn. There have been reports of either foreign material (dust/powder) preventing some keypresses, and also reports of missing carbon material under a single key which prevents a circuit being made when the key is pressed to the PCB.


ED fixes the missing carbon issue with a little graphite spray (unfortunately not a trivial process for the average user). If the problem is foreign matter though, it could be solved by pressing the key in and "mashing it around" a bit. Try that.


And one last thing to try, open a terminal and run the command op_test_inputs (this might be available from the System menu too, can't remember)

 

[wesbrown18]

Damn. There have been reports of either foreign material (dust/powder) preventing some keypresses, and also reports of missing carbon material under a single key which prevents a circuit being made when the key is pressed to the PCB.


ED fixes the missing carbon issue with a little graphite spray (unfortunately not a trivial process for the average user). If the problem is foreign matter though, it could be solved by pressing the key in and "mashing it around" a bit. Try that.


And one last thing to try, open a terminal and run the command op_test_inputs (this might be available from the System menu too, can't remember)

No amount of mashing around the Fn key makes it work.


Unfortunately, op_test_inputs is inaccessible to me from the Terminal, as I have no access to the '_' key or tab for tab completion.


How involved is it to disassemble the Pandora to get to the keymat and put carbon on?

 

[gruso]

Unfortunately, op_test_inputs is inaccessible to me from the Terminal, as I have no access to the '_' key or tab for tab completion.

Ah, oops

There are some keymat tips in this thread:





Adding some carbon to the keymat is the easy part, getting to it is the fiddly part that voids your warranty.

 

[wesbrown18]

Yeah, it doesn't look like something I really want to do. I have no fear of disassembling electronics, but it looks really quite delicate, and I don't want to void the warranty by screwing it up.


The alt key not working isn't the end of the world and doesn't get in the way of it playing most games or emulators, it's just mainly irritating when you try to use it for other things.


Mildly disappointing, but I'm going to just need to RMA it when I get back from traveling. I can see how the alt key would slip past QA, as it does not light up in the keyboard test application, and to find that issue, you'd have to bring up a terminal or text editor. A shame, as the unit is otherwise perfect, with a nice fit and finish.

 

[MarioPandio]

For the op_test_input issue of being un-typeable, you can cut and paste it into mousepad from on here, then paste that into the terminal. Works fine. Hope you get sorted

 

[Cas]

Hi


The FN key locks for one character only.