I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to why one key - and only one key -
on my PC keyboard should suddenly have stopped working.

The key in question is f11 which I'm trying to program with a Word macro.
Until yesterday it was working perfectly with a slightly different version
of the same macro.

The keyboard is an admittedly quite elderly (and expensive, when bought)
Cherry model which in every other respect is working fine.

I've tried opening the case and cleaning the keyboard's innards, both with a
brush and an air spray. There's no visible damage either to the underside
of the board or (with the key cap removed) to the individual switch.

Thanks.

On 12/01/2021 16:27, Bert Coules wrote:
I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to why one key - and only one key
- on my PC keyboard should suddenly have stopped working.

The key in question is f11 which I'm trying to program with a Word
macro. Until yesterday it was working perfectly with a slightly
different version of the same macro.

The keyboard is an admittedly quite elderly (and expensive, when bought)
Cherry model which in every other respect is working fine.

I've tried opening the case and cleaning the keyboard's innards, both
with a brush and an air spray.Â* There's no visible damage either to the
underside of the board or (with the key cap removed) to the individual
switch.

Thanks.

IMHO decent keyboards are so cheap now that it is probably not worth
spending any more time on it. In "desktop" days I used to be very fussy
about keyboard action, it may be that having used a dozen or more
laptops in the past 20 years I have become more tolerant. I'm currently
using an HP keyboard that was £12 in Sainsburys (I bought it when I
needed to fire up a unix box, then it was in my spares box for a few
years until the Dell keyboard died).

"newshound" wrote:

IMHO decent keyboards are so cheap now that it is probably not worth
spending any more time on it.

The current Cherry model equivalent to mine costs just over £100.

I smiled at "not worth spending any more time": when I opened the case I
discovered that the two ribbon cables which connect the main board to a
(fixed) sub-board don't have proper connectors but are fitted with the bare
wires pushed into soldered sockets. Dead easy to pull out, rather less so
to refit...

"Bert Coules" wrote in message
o.uk...
I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to why one key - and only one key -
on my PC keyboard should suddenly have stopped working.

The key in question is f11 which I'm trying to program with a Word macro.
Until yesterday it was working perfectly with a slightly different version
of the same macro.

The keyboard is an admittedly quite elderly (and expensive, when bought)
Cherry model which in every other respect is working fine.

I've tried opening the case and cleaning the keyboard's innards, both with
a brush and an air spray. There's no visible damage either to the
underside of the board or (with the key cap removed) to the individual
switch.

Most likely it's the key itself that doesn't work anymore
if it doesn't work on a different system too.

Fred wrote:

Most likely it's the key itself that doesn't work anymore
if it doesn't work on a different system too.

Thanks. I suppose I must have other software which allows the function keys
to be reassigned: I'll check.

On 12/01/2021 16:53, newshound wrote:
On 12/01/2021 16:27, Bert Coules wrote:
I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to why one key - and only one
key - on my PC keyboard should suddenly have stopped working.

The key in question is f11 which I'm trying to program with a Word
macro. Until yesterday it was working perfectly with a slightly
different version of the same macro.

The keyboard is an admittedly quite elderly (and expensive, when
bought) Cherry model which in every other respect is working fine.

I've tried opening the case and cleaning the keyboard's innards, both
with a brush and an air spray.Â* There's no visible damage either to
the underside of the board or (with the key cap removed) to the
individual switch.

Thanks.

IMHO not very decent keyboards are so cheap now

....that they dont last more than 6 months before the keycaps are worn
out. I'll see how the 65 quid cherry lasts




--
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to
rule.
€“ H. L. Mencken, American journalist, 1880-1956

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

. I'll see how the 65 quid cherry lasts.

I've been using my current keyboard, daily and pretty much all day Monday to
Friday, for something like twenty five years. I had the one before that
(same model) for almost as long and I only replaced it because it was
physically damaged beyond obvious repair.

On Wed, 13 Jan 2021 04:08:06 +1100, Fred, better known as cantankerous
trolling senile geezer Rodent Speed, wrote:

FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread

--
Website (from 2007) dedicated to the 86-year-old senile Australian
cretin's pathological trolling:
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/r...d-faq.2973853/

Update:

Well, that was interesting. I loaded WordPerfect - and the dodgy key works
perfectly.

More Word-centred investigation needed, obviously...

On Tue, 12 Jan 2021 17:18:33 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 12/01/2021 16:53, newshound wrote:
On 12/01/2021 16:27, Bert Coules wrote:
I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to why one key - and only one
key - on my PC keyboard should suddenly have stopped working.

The key in question is f11 which I'm trying to program with a Word
macro. Until yesterday it was working perfectly with a slightly
different version of the same macro.

The keyboard is an admittedly quite elderly (and expensive, when
bought) Cherry model which in every other respect is working fine.

I've tried opening the case and cleaning the keyboard's innards, both
with a brush and an air spray.Â* There's no visible damage either to
the underside of the board or (with the key cap removed) to the
individual switch.

Thanks.

IMHO not very decent keyboards are so cheap now

...that they dont last more than 6 months before the keycaps are worn
out. I'll see how the 65 quid cherry lasts

Guaranteed 50 million strikes.

On 12/01/2021 17:44, Bert Coules wrote:
Update:

Well, that was interesting.Â* I loaded WordPerfect - and the dodgy key
works perfectly.

More Word-centred investigation needed, obviously...
That was worthy of Holmes...tee hee

--
On FT8 nobody knows you're a dog ...

Jimmy Stewart wrote:

That was worthy of Holmes...tee hee.

Why, thank you.

Here's another curious observation (tee hee):

When I try to assign the Word macro to f11 by pressing that key in the
"select shortcut key" dialogue box - up comes "f11". So the key *is* being
recognised.

I tried reassigning it with different things: letters, symbols - and none of
them worked either.

I confess myself puzzled.

Bert Coules wrote:
Fred wrote:

Most likely it's the key itself that doesn't work anymore
if it doesn't work on a different system too.

Thanks. I suppose I must have other software which allows the function keys
to be reassigned: I'll check.

You have actually tried it on a different system have you?

--
Chris Green
·

Chris Green wrote:

You have actually tried it on a different system have you?

Sorry, but I don't know what you mean by a different system. A different
PC? I don't have one.

On 12/01/2021 17:18, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 12/01/2021 16:53, newshound wrote:
On 12/01/2021 16:27, Bert Coules wrote:
I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to why one key - and only one
key - on my PC keyboard should suddenly have stopped working.

The key in question is f11 which I'm trying to program with a Word
macro. Until yesterday it was working perfectly with a slightly
different version of the same macro.

The keyboard is an admittedly quite elderly (and expensive, when
bought) Cherry model which in every other respect is working fine.

I've tried opening the case and cleaning the keyboard's innards, both
with a brush and an air spray.Â* There's no visible damage either to
the underside of the board or (with the key cap removed) to the
individual switch.

Thanks.

IMHO not very decent keyboards are so cheap now

...that they dont last more than 6 months before the keycaps are worn
out. I'll see how the 65 quid cherry lasts




The 'Chicony' USB keyboard that I bought over 20 years ago is as
good as new. It was about £12 when I bought it.

Bert Coules wrote:
Chris Green wrote:

You have actually tried it on a different system have you?

Sorry, but I don't know what you mean by a different system. A different
PC? I don't have one.

I meant a different PC but since you have now found out that the F11
is working it's a bit irrelevant now.

--
Chris Green
·

On 12/01/2021 18:00, Bert Coules wrote:
Jimmy Stewart wrote:

That was worthy of Holmes...tee hee.

Why, thank you.

Here's another curious observation (tee hee):

When I try to assign the Word macro to f11 by pressing that key in the
"select shortcut key" dialogue box - up comes "f11".Â* So the key *is*
being recognised.

I tried reassigning it with different things: letters, symbols - and
none of them worked either.

I confess myself puzzled.

unlike Holmes to be puzzled .....

Bert Coules wrote:
Chris Green wrote:

You have actually tried it on a different system have you?

Sorry, but I don't know what you mean by a different system. A
different PC? I don't have one.



Boot a Linux DVD and test the keyboard there, in a textedit window.
That way, your outlay is limited to writing to a DVD for test materials.
Typically, a single layer 4.7GB DVD is sufficient for stuff like this,
and if the DVD is re-writeable, you can use it over and over again.

Something from here should suffice. You need broadband (not a
dialup modem) for tasks like this. The reason I picked 18.3, is
slightly better integration with Windows (SAMBA works decent).
Support for this will be done soon, and newer versions have
more rough edges.

https://www.linuxmint.com/release.php?id=31

Cinnamon (32-bit)
Cinnamon (64-bit)
KDE (32-bit)
KDE (64-bit)
MATE (32-bit)
MATE (64-bit)
Xfce (32-bit)
Xfce (64-bit)

If you're on Windows, look at the "System" control panel, to see
if you're using a 32 bit or 64 bit OS. Choosing 32 bit from the above
should always be safe. Using 64 bit helps from the above, if you
had gobs of RAM (3GB) and needed to be able to use all of it - for this
task, we don't care about that particularly.

On the mirror link I would use for this (I've already done one of these),
the sizes are listed. These images are all in the vicinity of 2 gigabytes,
so will take a number of minutes to download. Then, use Imgburn or similar,
to convert the ISO file into a bootable DVD. Then boot from it, and
test the keyboard.

http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/li...t/stable/18.3/

linuxmint-18.3-cinnamon-32bit.iso 24-Nov-2017 17:00 2G
linuxmint-18.3-cinnamon-64bit.iso 24-Nov-2017 13:26 2G
linuxmint-18.3-kde-32bit.iso 13-Dec-2017 15:24 2G
linuxmint-18.3-kde-64bit.iso 13-Dec-2017 15:59 2G
linuxmint-18.3-mate-32bit.iso 24-Nov-2017 18:08 2G
linuxmint-18.3-mate-64bit.iso 24-Nov-2017 14:47 2G
linuxmint-18.3-xfce-32bit.iso 13-Dec-2017 14:56 2G
linuxmint-18.3-xfce-64bit.iso 13-Dec-2017 11:48 2G
sha256sum.txt 13-Dec-2017 16:15 774
sha256sum.txt.gpg 13-Dec-2017 16:16 819

The XFCE version, might not need quite as much RAM as the others,
as the display elements are simpler. Generally today, a computer
needs at least 1.5GB RAM to stand a chance of running random distros like that.

I don't think your keyboard is broken. Time will tell.

Note: Nothing will be installed on your computer. *Do NOT* click the
INSTALL icon typically found on the upper left of the screen
when the Linux DVD boots.

Note2: Linux distros come in LiveDVD, InstallOnlyDVD, NetworkInstall,
and this one is a LiveDVD. A LiveDVD can install, but only if
you honk on that icon. The InstallOnly flavor and the NetworkInstall
flavor, start to install right away. I am pointing you at a
collection of LiveDVD.

They make books for this. If someone asks you whether they make
books, they do. I don't really know what the current version of
this is, as these are quite old. Of these two, the first is year 2006,
the second is year 2009.

http://index-of.co.uk/Linux/Linux%20...207th%20Ed.pdf

https://www.iiitd.edu.in/~amarjeet/F...mies%209th.pdf

Paul

On Tue, 12 Jan 2021 17:35:52 +0000, Bert Coules wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

. I'll see how the 65 quid cherry lasts.

I've been using my current keyboard, daily and pretty much all day
Monday to Friday, for something like twenty five years. I had the one
before that (same model) for almost as long and I only replaced it
because it was physically damaged beyond obvious repair.

Can beat that with this one. Purchased in 1989 and used daily ever since.

IBM Model M, of course. Cost £130 odd in 1989.



--
My posts are my copyright and if @diy_forums or Home Owners' Hub
wish to copy them they can pay me £1 a message.
Use the BIG mirror service in the UK: http://www.mirrorservice.org
*lightning surge protection* - a w_tom conductor

On 12/01/2021 18:00, Bert Coules wrote:
Jimmy Stewart wrote:

That was worthy of Holmes...tee hee.

Why, thank you.

Here's another curious observation (tee hee):

When I try to assign the Word macro to f11 by pressing that key in the
"select shortcut key" dialogue box - up comes "f11".Â* So the key *is*
being recognised.

I tried reassigning it with different things: letters, symbols - and
none of them worked either.

I confess myself puzzled.

I think those models may have completely separate switches for each key.
I guess your efforts have disturbed some dirt or wear debris that has
now settled where it is not getting in the way.

First thing to try is that keyboard on another pc. One has to isolate that
it is indeed the keyboard and not some subtle key scanning fault in the pc.
Is there any electronics in the keyboard? Could be that its just a failed
logic gate and is probably unrepeatable.
Brian

--

This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Bert Coules" wrote in message
o.uk...
I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to why one key - and only one key -
on my PC keyboard should suddenly have stopped working.

The key in question is f11 which I'm trying to program with a Word macro.
Until yesterday it was working perfectly with a slightly different version
of the same macro.

The keyboard is an admittedly quite elderly (and expensive, when bought)
Cherry model which in every other respect is working fine.

I've tried opening the case and cleaning the keyboard's innards, both with
a brush and an air spray. There's no visible damage either to the
underside of the board or (with the key cap removed) to the individual
switch.

Thanks.

The Logitek wireless keyboards are very good.
Just one more thought, if you have been reprogramming keys, then are you
absolutely sure you have not permanently left it programmed to do nothing at
all? I've seen this happen with laptops which allow toggling of the function
keys between laptop control and the original functions when there is
registry corruption due to a hard drive issue.
Brian

--

This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"newshound" wrote in message
...
On 12/01/2021 16:27, Bert Coules wrote:
I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to why one key - and only one
key - on my PC keyboard should suddenly have stopped working.

The key in question is f11 which I'm trying to program with a Word macro.
Until yesterday it was working perfectly with a slightly different
version of the same macro.

The keyboard is an admittedly quite elderly (and expensive, when bought)
Cherry model which in every other respect is working fine.

I've tried opening the case and cleaning the keyboard's innards, both
with a brush and an air spray. There's no visible damage either to the
underside of the board or (with the key cap removed) to the individual
switch.

Thanks.

IMHO decent keyboards are so cheap now that it is probably not worth
spending any more time on it. In "desktop" days I used to be very fussy
about keyboard action, it may be that having used a dozen or more laptops
in the past 20 years I have become more tolerant. I'm currently using an
HP keyboard that was £12 in Sainsburys (I bought it when I needed to fire
up a unix box, then it was in my spares box for a few years until the Dell
keyboard died).

Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote

First thing to try is that keyboard on another pc.

He hasn’t got another one, but can use a linux live CD.

But he knows that it works fine in other software.

One has to isolate that it is indeed the keyboard and not some subtle key
scanning fault in the pc.

Or just the software.

Is there any electronics in the keyboard?

There is in them all now.

Could be that its just a failed logic gate

Not now it works fine in other software,

and is probably unrepeatable.

Fraid it is repeatable.

"Bert Coules" wrote in message
o.uk...
I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to why one key - and only one
key - on my PC keyboard should suddenly have stopped working.

The key in question is f11 which I'm trying to program with a Word macro.
Until yesterday it was working perfectly with a slightly different
version of the same macro.

The keyboard is an admittedly quite elderly (and expensive, when bought)
Cherry model which in every other respect is working fine.

I've tried opening the case and cleaning the keyboard's innards, both
with a brush and an air spray. There's no visible damage either to the
underside of the board or (with the key cap removed) to the individual
switch.

Thanks.

Brian Gaff (Sofa) wrote

The Logitek wireless keyboards are very good.

But have a real problem that if the keytop comes
off, it can be impossible to put it back on again.

Just one more thought,

Too radical by far.

if you have been reprogramming keys, then are you absolutely sure you have
not permanently left it programmed to do nothing at all?

Yes, it works fine in some software.

I've seen this happen with laptops which allow toggling of the function
keys between laptop control and the original functions when there is
registry corruption due to a hard drive issue.


"newshound" wrote in message
...
On 12/01/2021 16:27, Bert Coules wrote:
I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to why one key - and only one
key - on my PC keyboard should suddenly have stopped working.

The key in question is f11 which I'm trying to program with a Word
macro. Until yesterday it was working perfectly with a slightly
different version of the same macro.

The keyboard is an admittedly quite elderly (and expensive, when bought)
Cherry model which in every other respect is working fine.

I've tried opening the case and cleaning the keyboard's innards, both
with a brush and an air spray. There's no visible damage either to the
underside of the board or (with the key cap removed) to the individual
switch.

Thanks.

IMHO decent keyboards are so cheap now that it is probably not worth
spending any more time on it. In "desktop" days I used to be very fussy
about keyboard action, it may be that having used a dozen or more laptops
in the past 20 years I have become more tolerant. I'm currently using an
HP keyboard that was £12 in Sainsburys (I bought it when I needed to fire
up a unix box, then it was in my spares box for a few years until the
Dell keyboard died).

That's a good thought, Brian, thanks, but it turned out not to be a purely
Word issue: the problem is now solved.

Now sorted, Brian, thanks: it was due to a a peculiarity of Word, a program
not exactly known for such things.

Rod Speed wrote:

But he knows that it works fine in other software.

And indeed, as you might have seen from another post, it turned out to be a
peculiarity of Word.

I do wish that WordPerfect had become the industry standard. It has
oddities of its own but at least they're logical oddities.

"Brian Gaff \(Sofa\)" wrote:
The Logitek wireless keyboards are very good.

Yes, we have several of those, I've worn out (or scratched off) one
letter on mine but that's not a big issue really.

--
Chris Green
·

FLUSH the trolling senile pest's latest troll**** unread

--
"Who or What is Rod Speed?

Rod Speed is an entirely modern phenomenon. Essentially, Rod Speed
is an insecure and worthless individual who has discovered he can
enhance his own self-esteem in his own eyes by playing "the big, hard
man" on the InterNet."
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/r...d-faq.2973853/

FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread

--
pamela about Rodent Speed:
"His off the cuff expertise demonstrates how little he knows..."
MID:

Bert Coules wrote:

when I opened the case I
discovered that the two ribbon cables which connect the main board to a
(fixed) sub-board don't have proper connectors but are fitted with the
bare wires pushed into soldered sockets.Â* Dead easy to pull out, rather
less so to refit...

That type of "flatflex" cable usually has some form of (weak, easily
breakable) latch.

On 12/01/2021 17:44, jon wrote:
On Tue, 12 Jan 2021 17:18:33 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 12/01/2021 16:53, newshound wrote:
On 12/01/2021 16:27, Bert Coules wrote:
I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to why one key - and only one
key - on my PC keyboard should suddenly have stopped working.

The key in question is f11 which I'm trying to program with a Word
macro. Until yesterday it was working perfectly with a slightly
different version of the same macro.

The keyboard is an admittedly quite elderly (and expensive, when
bought) Cherry model which in every other respect is working fine.

I've tried opening the case and cleaning the keyboard's innards, both
with a brush and an air spray.Â* There's no visible damage either to
the underside of the board or (with the key cap removed) to the
individual switch.

Thanks.

IMHO not very decent keyboards are so cheap now

...that they dont last more than 6 months before the keycaps are worn
out. I'll see how the 65 quid cherry lasts

Guaranteed 50 million strikes.

that's the switches. I am nore concerned as to whether the key caps last out

They are not two shot moulded, but they are laser engraved

--
"In our post-modern world, climate science is not powerful because it is
true: it is true because it is powerful."

Lucas Bergkamp

On 12/01/2021 16:27, Bert Coules wrote:
I'd be grateful for any suggestions as to why one key - and only one key
- on my PC keyboard should suddenly have stopped working.

The key in question is f11 which I'm trying to program with a Word
macro. Until yesterday it was working perfectly with a slightly
different version of the same macro.


Is it definitely the key itself not working?
I recall there's some faff assigning macros to keys and sometimes i've
done it unsuccessfully due to the not entirely intuitive process.

In article ,
Bert Coules wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

. I'll see how the 65 quid cherry lasts.

I've been using my current keyboard, daily and pretty much all day Monday to
Friday, for something like twenty five years. I had the one before that
(same model) for almost as long and I only replaced it because it was
physically damaged beyond obvious repair.

This one (IBM style) is also over 25 years old and just fine. Most soft
touch ones don't last anything like as long. I've replaced the one on my
most recent laptop. At about 5 years old.

--
*If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

a program not exactly known for such things.

Oh, good grief. UNknown...

On Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:49:05 -0000, "Bert Coules"
wrote:


Rod Speed wrote:


But he knows that it works fine in other software.


And indeed, as you might have seen from another post, it turned out to be a
peculiarity of Word.

I do wish that WordPerfect had become the industry standard. It has
oddities of its own but at least they're logical oddities.


So go on, tell us what it was in Word.
--
Dave W

"Dave W" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:49:05 -0000, "Bert Coules"
wrote:

Rod Speed wrote:

But he knows that it works fine in other software.

And indeed, as you might have seen from another post, it turned out to be
a
peculiarity of Word.

I do wish that WordPerfect had become the industry standard. It has
oddities of its own but at least they're logical oddities.

So go on, tell us what it was in Word.

He did, pressing the key does nothing.

On Sat, 16 Jan 2021 13:32:20 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

FLUSH the trolling senile asshole's latest troll**** unread

--
"Anonymous" to trolling senile Rodent Speed:
"You can **** off as you know less than pig **** you sad
little ignorant ****."
MID:

You sure he had not made a macro that did nothing and hence it was behaving
correctly grin.
Brian

--
Brian Gaff -

Blind user, so no pictures please!

This document should only be read by those persons for whom Paranoia is
normal
and its contents are probably boring and confusing. If you receive this
e-Mail
message in error, do not notify the sender immediately, instead, print it
out and make
paper animals out of it. As the rest of this disclaimer is totally
incomprehensible, we have not bothered to attach it.
"Rod Speed" wrote in message
...


"Dave W" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 13 Jan 2021 09:49:05 -0000, "Bert Coules"
wrote:

Rod Speed wrote:

But he knows that it works fine in other software.

And indeed, as you might have seen from another post, it turned out to be
a
peculiarity of Word.

I do wish that WordPerfect had become the industry standard. It has
oddities of its own but at least they're logical oddities.

So go on, tell us what it was in Word.

He did, pressing the key does nothing.

In article ,
Owain Lastname wrote:
On Wednesday, 13 January 2021 at 09:49:09 UTC, Bert Coules wrote:
I do wish that WordPerfect had become the industry standard. It has
oddities of its own but at least they're logical oddities.

It *was* the industry standard, but they botched moving to Windows and
never managed a coherent office suite presentation in the way MS did.

Owain

since MS created both Windows and MS Office, that's hardly surprising.

There was more it than that. My department adopted Wordperfect but were
told the corporate policy was to use MS products. I think this was at the
time of Win 3.1

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle