Laptop issues

[Buckman]

The keyboard keys are usually wired in a matrix arrangement, so several keys will share the same X or Y coordinates. Which can mean that if there's a broken track or dodgy connector several keys on the same row or column will result in the wrong or no recognised output.

That makes sense except that it is very random and can affect any key. Most recent one was instead of a "g" it was outputting "e"? I went to test on a Word document and it started working correctly again. It is only when I read what i have typed I pick up the issue.

 

[JTQ]

I agree with what you are saying, but with the keyboard issue it is unlikely to be a third party software and more than likely the software that came with the laptop on day one

Very unlikely to be, "what it came with" if it is the OS and you accepted updates, as that Microsoft have "updated" Windows several times. This if not precluding it from action via the CRA 2015, will complicate things.

Back to trying to identify the "problem", easily, with nearly no experience required and at zero risk :-

Have you tried using the "virtual keyboard", one that shows on the screen and you type using just mouse clicks?
That removes from the fault finding diagnosis process any hardware problems there might be with the physical keyboard.
WIN 10
WIN 11

 

[Robert_374373903]

I started off the day looking for a certain photo on my laptop. I ended up with an extra Tablet and phone. All down to iCloud saying that I am filled up available space. Trouble is I have not got Apple and there it keeps saying log in or create which I also did and when resigning in it did not recognize me !. So after many attempts got to uninstall iCloud. With a clear mind went back to my pc and phone to find all my photo's have also been gone as well and this time could not get them back. Found some on Google photo's and BT Cloud but not all of them and now trying to sync them to to the pc PHOTO . Very frustrating.

 

[Sam Vimes]

Roger I'm a little unclear about what you're saying.

You have a PC, presumably a Windows machine a tablet and phone an I assume that because you say you don't have Apple, this mean none of these are Apple devices.

This doesn't stop you using iCloud as long as you have an Apple ID and Password which I guess you must have if you've been getting messages about running out of storage space.

Unless you do otherwise all your Photos look like they've been stored in your iCloud account and not locally on any of your devices. So uninstalling iCloud was perhaps not a good move and you need to reinstall this on your PC, which hopefully will give you access to your photos.

If you do get them back then you should download all of them to your PC not only as a backup but you can then delete some from iCloud so you don't run out if space.

On your tablet and phone and assuming these are not Apple devices you can view your photos through a web browser at address iCloud.com

I'm not an Apple fan but hope the above may help you.

 

[Martin_E]

You can also expand the Apple iCloud storage, it costs next to nothing to get more iCloud storage

 

[otherclive]

£0.99 for 50gb and £2.99 for 200 gb.

There’s been a lot of scam emails saying your storage is full. I hope the OP hasn’t been duped by one of them.

iCloud+ plans and pricing – Apple Support (UK)

When you sign up for iCloud, you automatically get 5 GB of free storage. If you need more space in iCloud, you can upgrade to iCloud+.

support.apple.com

 

[Sam Vimes]

On line cloud storage suits some folks but once you become dependent on it your paying pretty much forever and subject to the whims of a third party.

Careful thought needs to be applied as to 'what are the benefits for me that justify the continual cost'.

For me I have Terabytes of images and videos and prefer to have my own local backups, which also include all other files on my machines. I have no need to be able to view them on any other device or from anywhere.

 

[otherclive]

I use iCloud at 200gb and have a 2TB hard drive that backs up via Time Machine. It also contains some other data separate to Time Machine. Then I have a 1TB hard drive that is stored in a tin box in the garage and once a month my phone tells me to take it and manually take a back up from the Mac.

 

[JTQ]

£0.99 for 50gb and £2.99 for 200 gb.

There’s been a lot of scam emails saying your storage is full. I hope the OP hasn’t been duped by one of them.

iCloud+ plans and pricing – Apple Support (UK)

When you sign up for iCloud, you automatically get 5 GB of free storage. If you need more space in iCloud, you can upgrade to iCloud+.

support.apple.com

Even the modest 50GB is coming in at £12 a year, whereas a 64GB USB 3 memory stick costs under £4 and last more than the year. Therefore for little more than half your £12 you could invest in two and double your off machine back up.
LINK
It helps that on a better day than today, I could make it a nice long cycle ride to pick a load up without the delivery costs.

 

[otherclive]

Even the modest 50GB is coming in at £12 a year, whereas a 64GB USB 3 memory stick costs under £4 and last more than the year. Therefore for little more than half your £12 you could invest in two and double your off machine back up.
LINK
It helps that on a better day than today, I could make it a nice long cycle ride to pick a load up without the delivery costs.

I guess it all depends on what your usage requirements are. My hard drives are left overs from when I had a Windows system. I have a 64gb stick but that tends to be used for six monthly updates to the cars satnav and infotainment system. iCloud I use between three devices plus share storage with my wife too. So £2.99 a month is okay for me.

 

[Robert_374373903]

Roger I'm a little unclear about what you're saying.

You have a PC, presumably a Windows machine a tablet and phone an I assume that because you say you don't have Apple, this mean none of these are Apple devices.

This doesn't stop you using iCloud as long as you have an Apple ID and Password which I guess you must have if you've been getting messages about running out of storage space.

Unless you do otherwise all your Photos look like they've been stored in your iCloud account and not locally on any of your devices. So uninstalling iCloud was perhaps not a good move and you need to reinstall this on your PC, which hopefully will give you access to your photos.

If you do get them back then you should download all of them to your PC not only as a backup but you can then delete some from iCloud so you don't run out if space.

On your tablet and phone and assuming these are not Apple devices you can view your photos through a web browser at address iCloud.com

I'm not an Apple fan but hope the above may help you.

Thank you for reply. I did reinstall Apple on the pc and still could not get the photo's even though it said it is nearly full, then it goes on further to keep asking for id which is infuriating as keeps asking the same question "log in". As I am with BT which is 1000gb I will try to get them back some way to Bt.

 

[Robert_374373903]

You can also expand the Apple iCloud storage, it costs next to nothing to get more iCloud storage

At moment it said £1.99 per month

 

[Buckman]

Yesterday while typing a post on this forum, incorrect characters were typed. I opened a Word document and typed the alphabet and no issues. I went back to my post and surprising the incorrect character was now correct? However the "down" and "delete" buttons still do not work in any application.

 

[Sam Vimes]

Thank you for reply. I did reinstall Apple on the pc and still could not get the photo's even though it said it is nearly full, then it goes on further to keep asking for id which is infuriating as keeps asking the same question "log in". As I am with BT which is 1000gb I will try to get them back some way to Bt.

Sorry but not sure what you mean by install Apple. Apple is the company so what program are you trying to install?

If your photos are stored in iCloud you could just try using the address iCloud.com in your browser (Chrome, Edge or whatever you use). You will then have to sign in with your Apple ID and Password.

You mention BT. You'll only get your pictures from there if that's where you also stored them.

 

[Buckman]

Again today typing in this forum different characters appear when typing "e" as it outputs a"b". Opened MS Word and typing okay. Back to this forum and no more issues.

On thinking about it no issue using FB and also no issue when using other forums. How can a forum cause the incorrect characters to appear. Seems impossible that it should happen.

 

[Bluetonic]

Again today typing in this forum different characters appear when typing "e" as it outputs a"b". Opened MS Word and typing okay. Back to this forum and no more issues.

On thinking about it no issue using FB and also no issue when using other forums. How can a forum cause the incorrect characters to appear. Seems impossible that it should happen.

That is an odd one.
Have you tried using a different browser?
Make sure current browser is up to date, clear casche, log out and log back in.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Sometimes web based programs can allow you to use different keyboards. Check in settings for language settings, and keyboard languages?

 

[Buckman]

That is an odd one.
Have you tried using a different browser?
Make sure current browser is up to date, clear casche, log out and log back in.

Using the same browser for everything and at the moment the issue seems to be related to the PC forum?

Sometimes web based programs can allow you to use different keyboards. Check in settings for language settings, and keyboard languages?

Good advice, but that was one of the first things I checked. Although set to UK I have notice that a word like "organise" is underlined in red to indicate a spelling mistake but "organize" is not? Isn't "organize" with a "Z" American spelling?

 

[Sam Vimes]

Again today typing in this forum different characters appear when typing "e" as it outputs a"b". Opened MS Word and typing okay. Back to this forum and no more issues.

On thinking about it no issue using FB and also no issue when using other forums. How can a forum cause the incorrect characters to appear. Seems impossible that it should happen.

A somewhat risque story and one which I hope my fellow moderator doesn't wrap me over the knuckles with. Also no way am I suggesting this is Buckman's problem.

Back in the '80s I had a stint in the world of commercial computing. We designed and built our own computer systems including displays and keyboards.

On one occassion we had a call from a customer who had an operator who was geting spurious characters inputted into her terminal - particularly extra spaces. We sent an engineer in to check what the problem was but despite fully testing the keyboard and system he could find no problem.

So, he got the operator to demonstrate the problem and the nice young lady did so. Low and behold random characters appeared. After careful observation he asked the young lady to leave him to make some adjustments. She left, he made adjustments and called her back. Problem fixed.

When we queryed what adjustments did he make to fix the problem, he stated that he'd only raised the height of the ladies chair. Apparently she was rather well built in some delicate areas which were interacting with the keyboard on occassions.

 

[Buckman]

I like to think that my belly is not that large!

 

[Sam Vimes]

Who said belly?

 

[Buckman]

Who said belly?

Could be my secretary when she leans over to help me with my grammar?

 

[Parksy]

A somewhat risque story and one which I hope my fellow moderator doesn't wrap me over the knuckles with. Also no way am I suggesting this is Buckman's problem...... ......Apparently she was rather well built in some delicate areas which were interacting with the keyboard on occassions.

Far be it from me to interfere with the discussion of the natural attributes of a lady and her keyboard interaction.
😉

 

[Ukdave2002]

Reminiscing about keyboards in the 90s, I remember adding a file to the autoexec file on my bosses PC so that the £ key generated “lbs” and the $ key generated “O L'amour” (older members will get it!)

How we chuckled as he described the problem to our help desk. Oh for the days when companies didn’t lock everything down.

 

[Sam Vimes]

Buckman.....

Have you made any progress with your problem?

If you haven't tried this already it might be worth a shot but with anything like this is best to make sure you have a backup of all your important stuff.

Go to the Dell Support web site and find the section where you can downloand drivers. Should be here:-

Treiber und Downloads | Dell Deutschland

You can enter your Service Tag number and it should pull up a number of driver options, one of which may be for you keyboard. Download it and install and see what happens.

The other option is within Windows find the Device Manager. On Win10 you right click on the Start Icon and it should appear within the list of options.

Run Device Manager and look for the Keyboard entry.

Expand the entry then right click on the Keyboard name and you should see some options to Update Driver or Uninstall Device.

Try Update Driver but if this says you have the latest version anyway ignore this and then try Unistall Device - Keyboard that is. Then reboot your machine. It should find your keyboard and install the latest driver for it.

Best of luck