Is my laptop done?

Oat23

(Couldn't decide which sub-forum would be best for this, please move if it's better suited elsewhere)

Hi lads, here's the story.

Last week my brother spilled a glass of coke on my Dell Inspiron 6400 keyboard while the laptop was on.
I turned it off right away and unplugged the battery etc and did my best to get most of the coke out using tweezers, cotton buds etc and then I let it sit for 24 hrs.

Turned it on and I heard a few error beeps and the keyboard was unresponsive so I shut it down and assumed it was done.
I turned it on yesterday and there was no error beeps and it worked fine other than buttons being pressed randomly which I put down to sticky buttons that could be cleaned.

Turned it on earlier today and the error beeps were back, like the first time I put it on all I was getting was the boot screen that tells me to select my OS or windows memory diagnostic(neither of which I can select because the keyboard doesn't work).

So my question is: Would this be a problem caused by the coke getting to the sensitive parts of the laptop or is it just the keyboard is fecked and I can replace it with one from ebay?

Thanks for any help!

Lu Tze

It might just be the keyboard. Can you plugin a usb keyboard to see if it boots al the way to windows etc.

Oat23

Lu Tze wrote: »

It might just be the keyboard. Can you plugin a usb keyboard to see if it boots al the way to windows etc.

Thanks for the suggestion, Lu Tze.
I connected up a usb keyboard there and it worked fine, the laptop keyboard doesn't respond but I'm typing away fine in notepad with the usb keyboard.
Should mean that luckily the keyboard is the only problem? I'll have to order and install a replacement keyboard from ebay soon.

Thanks.

Alanstrainor

Oatesy23 wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestion, Lu Tze.
I connected up a usb keyboard there and it worked fine, the laptop keyboard doesn't respond but I'm typing away fine in notepad with the usb keyboard.
Should mean that luckily the keyboard is the only problem? I'll have to order and install a replacement keyboard from ebay soon.

Thanks.

It could be the keyboard, but it could also be a motherboard problem. It's almost impossible to tell without testing a new keyboard though.

jimmycrackcorm

Had the same problem with the OH's laptop - a replacement ebay keyboard made it good as new.

Oat23

Just a quick update lads.

Soon after I posted last the problem returned even though I had the laptops keyboard disabled in the device manager.
It went away then and it returned earlier on Sunday. I decided to take the laptop front off and disconnect the keyboards from the laptop. Put it back together and the problem is still there with the random button pressing .
It doesn't fill me with confidence, even when I disconnect the usb keyboard so no keyboard are connected the laptop will still spaz out, usually it just posts ''T'' and ''{'' over and over.

Maybe it'd be worth trying a reinstall of my OS?
Luckily I haven't ordered the keyboard yet, I doubt that will fix this.

Dennis2011

good luck. it was happend the laptop keyboard or laptop ac adapter.you need to look closely. this will let you take the keyboard out of the laptop (carefully unplug the ribbon cable) for closer inspection.

hearny

If the keyboard is disconnected and its still beeping you are probably in trouble.

The POST beeps are independent of any OS so its worth taking note of the beeps and searching for what they mean on the Dell site.

Some computers I have dealt with would not boot if no keyboard was detected, some even gave a keyboard error with press F1 (or similar) to continue, kind of hard without a keyboard.

Instead of reinstalling windows a linux live CD like Knoppix might be a better option.

Coke is about the worst thing you could spill on the laptop its so sticky, but on the plus side you will be able to see exactly where the coke made contact with.

Did any of it come in contact with the main board.