The Mystery of Dying Laptop Keyboards: A Household Dilemma

In our household, we’ve encountered an unusual and frustrating problem: all three of our laptops are experiencing keyboard failures, and I’m at a loss for the cause. Each device has succumbed to malfunction, where specific groups of keys or entire vertical rows become unresponsive. This pattern leaves us scrambling for solutions, particularly since these laptops are essential for both work and school activities.

To provide some background, we own a diverse set of laptops: a Lenovo Ideapad Flex 5 (2019), a Dell Latitude E7470 (2016), and a Huawei Matebook D15 (2021). Despite their different brands and models, they all seem to share a common fate – keyboard issues that have necessitated trips to the repair shop for replacements.

We have taken steps to troubleshoot these problems, including resetting the laptops to rule out any software issues. Unfortunately, these efforts have not yielded any improvement. This has left us wondering: is it something we’re doing? Do we type too forcefully, or are the conditions in our home to blame? Our living environment features constant air conditioning, but when the AC is off, temperatures can rise, especially when transporting the laptops outside.

I should also note that all my mechanical keyboards perform flawlessly, which leads me to believe this dilemma may be particular to membrane keyboards.

If you have any insights or recommendations on why this phenomenon is occurring, I’d greatly appreciate your input. Could it be a specific vulnerability in membrane designs, or is there something we’re overlooking in our usage practices? Your thoughts would be invaluable as we try to understand this puzzling situation.