Acer Predator keys not working. (possible fix) - Predator 317

This is more of a blanket try-it answer than a question...

I had a problem with my Predator 317 and the "Z" key. My issue was the "Z" key only. Everything else worked. I tried the filter key trick and that did work for one night but was dead again by morning. I uninstalled drivers and everything else. I knew it had to be programmatic as for one, it was only the "z" key and two, the filter keys thing worked for a while. I am also old and don't see well all the time. I also have a cat that is a pita. So I got thinking that between my fat fingering and the cat, perhaps a key combo got tripped and it jammed something up programmatically. I tried alt+, Fn+, win+ "Z". When I finally hit ctrl+z the key started working again. So far, so good. So try all those things to maybe toggle back something you may have fat-fingered and/or caused the software to jam. I only had one key issue, but it may work on others.

//Edited the content to add model name.

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William_mk2

@Whizbang

You say - When I finally hit ctrl+z the key started working again. Thanks for your suggestion ..

Here are the possible fixes if you face the same problem again..

If the keyboard is not working in the future, you can always reinstall the keyboard drivers, do bios defaults or you can even use an external keyboard.

Try windows x
go to device manager
expand keyboard
right click on keyboard driver - uninstall
Restart the computer

It should work fine..

Doing bios defaults will also fix the keyboard issue sometimes

While turning on the computer, tap f2. It will go to bios. Press f9 once. It will show load bios defaults with a yes or no popup. Press enter. Popup screen will disappear. Press f10 once. It will show save changes popup with yes or no. Press enter. Computer will restart and it will load into windows.

Sometimes a simple system restore will fix the issue..

Try windows x
click on power shell admin or command prompt admin
type rstrui
chose an earlier date on which your computer was working fine
click on next, finish, yes
It will restore your computer to an earlier date
if you get an message - system restore not completed - click on close
It will show you all the icons..

Try and check whether it is working now ..

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions for others...

I

Erick-Acer_Retired

Hi @ Whizbang
Please mention your model name of unit

Whizbang

William_mk2 said:

@Whizbang

You say - When I finally hit ctrl+z the key started working again. Thanks for your suggestion ..

Here are the possible fixes if you face the same problem again..

If the keyboard is not working in the future, you can always reinstall the keyboard drivers, do bios defaults or you can even use an external keyboard.

Try windows x
go to device manager
expand keyboard
right click on keyboard driver - uninstall
Restart the computer

It should work fine..

Doing bios defaults will also fix the keyboard issue sometimes

While turning on the computer, tap f2. It will go to bios. Press f9 once. It will show load bios defaults with a yes or no popup. Press enter. Popup screen will disappear. Press f10 once. It will show save changes popup with yes or no. Press enter. Computer will restart and it will load into windows.

Sometimes a simple system restore will fix the issue..

Try windows x
click on power shell admin or command prompt admin
type rstrui
chose an earlier date on which your computer was working fine
click on next, finish, yes
It will restore your computer to an earlier date
if you get an message - system restore not completed - click on close
It will show you all the icons..
Try and check whether it is working now ..

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions for others...

I

Well, I tried going back to a restore point. It failed and the PC is now locked into some repair mode it never leaves. It won't even boot on my recovery drive or even a windows install dvd. From there it makes it to a blue screen and sits. Now I have a paperweight.

xapim

Whizbang ALT+F10 on boot is it working ?? (assuming your acer recovery partition its still intact) if so and if you dont need to backup anything in the drive perform a a stock recovery clean install delete all files otherwise if you need to get some backups you can still get access to it create a hiren's boot usb drive and boot from it backup whatever you need and after clean install windows either with acer stock recovery if working or if not create a win10 usb drive and clean install it good luck

PS: never use restore points they are useless (they only worked sort of fine on win xp/7 above that started to get buggy/broken) and most times do not even work also never reinstall windows keeping your files that will not solve any possible software issues at all only a clean install would solve it

Whizbang

xapim said:

Whizbang ALT+F10 on boot is it working ?? (assuming your acer recovery partition its still intact) if so and if you dont need to backup anything in the drive perform a a stock recovery clean install delete all files otherwise if you need to get some backups you can still get access to it create a hiren's boot usb drive and boot from it backup whatever you need and after clean install windows either with acer stock recovery if working or if not create a win10 usb drive and clean install it good luck

PS: never use restore points they are useless (they only worked sort of fine on win xp/7 above that started to get buggy/broken) and most times do not even work also never reinstall windows keeping your files that will not solve any possible software issues at all only a clean install would solve it

ALT F10 goes into a forever "Please Wait" loop. I even tried the Hirens CD. It didn't boot to anything but did eventually report a stop error.

xapim

@Whizbang bare in mind to boot from 3rd party usb drives you need to setup a supervisor password and disable secure boot hiren's should work properly after showing up in the boot menu (F12) if not you could always try a linux live usb drive also if ALT+F10 will loop that means your recovery partition its faulty you would need to clean install the OS from a usb drive and forget the built in acer stock recovery as its lost forever only way to get it back its to send it to acer to get it clean installed by them otherwise you need to download all drivers/software from acer and install everything one by one yourself but of course even sending your laptop anywhere make sure you backup whatever you need or you will loose it all and if you still keep having issues after a clean install that would mean its not software its hardware

Whizbang

xapim said:

@Whizbang bare in mind to boot from 3rd party usb drives you need to setup a supervisor password and disable secure boot hiren's should work properly after showing up in the boot menu (F12) if not you could always try a linux live usb drive also if ALT+F10 will loop that means your recovery partition its faulty you would need to clean install the OS from a usb drive and forget the built in acer stock recovery as its lost forever only way to get it back its to send it to acer to get it clean installed by them otherwise you need to download all drivers/software from acer and install everything one by one yourself but of course even sending your laptop anywhere make sure you backup whatever you need or you will loose it all and if you still keep having issues after a clean install that would mean its not software its hardware

They did away with that I read in later versions of Windows 10. But at any rate, it is fixed. I bit the bullet and got a brand new 1TB drive. I was never happy with the 256GB one anyway. I put my windows recovery drive in and it is back. albeit all back from a little over 2 years ago...but back. Loading changes and reconfiguring stuff now. Just a tip. If you use your recovery software media, it will remember the size drive you had before and partition it the same. I had to move stuff around with a third-party program to allocate all the space because it put my recovery drive between "C" and the unallocated rest of the drive. All is well now. Not seamless, but that was my fault for not running more regular backups. I should have saved myself the heartache and bought the drive yesterday.

Whizbang

Thanks for all your help xapim.

xapim

Whizbang said:

Thanks for all your help xapim.

Whizbang youre welcome glade you got it sorted i usually use easeus partition master for cloning all drives been using it for years not a single issue but i also own a inateck cloning dock that works offline also clones perfectly any 2.5"/3.5" drives and also have a 2.5" m.2 adapter (sata only not nvme but nvme adapters are also available) which i can use either to clone offline or via software either on a dock or usb either way you should accept your own answer as solved since you have sorted it yourself

My advice to everyone make a backup clone drive asap to avoid headaches and these days most probably everyone needs to upgrade the drives anyways as the stock drives are too small for most games (unless it already comes with at least 500gb ssd minimum) so i would upgrade clone into the new one and save the stock as emergency backup

Whizbang

xapim said:

Whizbang said:

Thanks for all your help xapim.

Whizbang youre welcome glade you got it sorted i usually use easeus partition master for cloning all drives been using it for years not a single issue but i also own a inateck cloning dock that works offline also clones perfectly any 2.5"/3.5" drives and also have a 2.5" m.2 adapter (sata only not nvme but nvme adapters are also available) which i can use either to clone offline or via software either on a dock or usb either way you should accept your own answer as solved since you have sorted it yourself

My advice to everyone make a backup clone drive asap to avoid headaches and these days most probably everyone needs to upgrade the drives anyways as the stock drives are too small for most games (unless it already comes with at least 500gb ssd minimum) so i would upgrade clone into the new one and save the stock as emergency backup

Update! I think I know what caused the original crash. Right after my restore from image from an earlier part of the string, Microsoft installed it's 2H20 (or21, I forget) major update through normal channels. If failed and I got the same "preparing automatic repair" screen. I almost died. But this time it did not lock up and rolled everything back. Probably because it didn't kill the drive this time. But after that the PC was working but buggy. An Nvida driver install kept locking up. Some of the programs that didn't come from the image I had locked up. And in general the whole thing had a weird feel to it. I also noticed that 2H20 (or whatever) kept trying to install in the background and would just quit. So I used SFC and DISM to make sure the system was whole. SFC did fix a few things some of which had to do with installers. Then I pulled 2H20 down with the Media Creation Tool and installed it with that since it runs more like a real upgrade...and it did. After the prerequisite sitting on your hands for an hour designed by Microsoft, the PC booted up fine with the new upgrade installed. All of the installers that failed worked perfectly after that. And so far the "z" key problem is fixed. But the update was probably tryna install when I tried the recovery and killed it. Still not sure if I absolutely had to have the new drive, but this one is 4x bigger anyway so who cares. And I have all my stuff. Just thought I would let you know in case anyone else shows up with this issue. Thanks again!