This is probably the weirdest hardware problem I’ve yet seen. I’ve run through a bunch of tests to narrow it down, and so far it just looks like three keyboard keys (g, h, and ') do not work when this brand new laptop is turned in certain directions (looks like there is some range of 120-180 degrees, but not sure yet).
Somehow, i saw this immediately after unboxing this brand new laptop (Inspiron 7577 Gaming, a replacement one “factory direct” from dell due to continual backlight bleed problems with the last one). During Windows setup, I found I couldn’t put in g and h keys, and later I tried out others and found the ’ key doesn’t work either. I had a camera recording everything at the time for other purposes, and when I turned the laptop toward the camera to show better, the keys started working. When I turned the laptop back to it’s previous position, it stopped working again. I checked different directions and found if I move enough in either direction, it will start working, but there is a clear range in which it doesn’t work.
Checked out on BIOS, with and without power and eth plugged in, put it on a different table, tried with and without tilting, etc. All show these keys simply do not work when turned in certain seemingly consistent directions. Tried out an external keyboard, and that works fine, so it’s limited to the built in keyboard and seems to be a definitive hardware problem.
I didn’t think this thing has a compass, gyroscope or anything else in it, and really nothing like that should cause certain keys to stop working anyway, but I’m just baffled by this.
I’m honestly not even mad about it myself, as this is just weird and could easily have been missed in a quick QC. I’m just curious what could possibly cause this. Best I got is shifting around puts some connection just barely out of place in those spots or something, or something on the level of solder hairs hitting or not hitting based on minute changes.
If I take it apart, it’ll likely void my warranty (it’s brand new and we only have this one because of the warranty on another). Though, if it was a cable connection problem, I’d expect more than just 3 random keys to have issues, but I guess who knows?
Since this device was already the result of a long support process, I’ve already told the contact at Dell we were working with about the issue, we’ll see what happens there, but yea they’ll need to fix it.
I kinda mention this at all because of how weird the problem is more than needing to fix it (though yes that needs to happen). I’ve never seen anything so weird.
I think now though that @MazeFrame is probably on the money, as the problem has now gotten worse so that last night when I tried to show it to my wife, I couldn’t get the keys to work at all no matter how I turned it. So, likely something was just barely touching sometimes before and any amount of movement could change it one way or the other, and now it’s just out of place more. But, all that is guess work right now.