pavilion

My Compaq Presario 2100 (actually 2104US) had a keyboard problem. Luckily I did some more searching before buying a replacement keyboard. Having said that, HP’s replacement keyboard is sub $35 AUD so I spent more time on this than it the part was worth.

The solution showed itself by accident, I accidently stated iTunes and noticed that I wasn’t getting any sound. On checking the volume control app on Windows I noticed my volume was set low. I inspected the volume controls on the side of the case and discovered the Volume Down button was jammed between the case frame. I couldn’t get it repositioned manually from outside the case.
It turns out that KeyTweak was right, key 131 is Volume Down. Had I realised that sooner it would have saved me a couple of hours.

Tags: compaq, hardware, HP, keyboard, laptop, notebook, pavilion, presario, repair, Technology

My Compaq Presario 2104US laptop is playing up. It’s seems as if a non-printing key like ctrl is stuck down (except I don’t think it is that key).

Symptoms:

1. Alt-Tab in windows doesn’t work as if ctrl key is held down. Ctrl-tab works
2. pressing and holding the down arrow key produces a ‘c’ character every second
3. Using PuTTY on a unix box ctrl-key combinations that require confirmation fail.
4. Using KeyTweak it reports the scancode 57392 constantly repeating. When I map that code to any other key it reports the code as key 131 (but I don’t think that is right). Update 3 June: It turns out this was right!

Tags: compaq, hardware, HP, laptop, notebook, pavilion, presario, repair, Technology