Aspire A 515-51G some keyboard keys including Power button don't work

I have had this laptop for 3 years and my warranty is finished. I have had this issue for the last 6 months. Keys were rarely working initially so I could plug a keyboard and keep the laptop on sleep instead of shutting down. Yesterday my battery ended so the laptop shut down. But the rarely working power button isn't working at all (no light). Battery lights are working all right though and I didn't have any BIOS updates. Steps I have tried off of forums:

1. Resetted the battery with the pinhole SWG2.

2. Pressed the SWG1 switch and tried powering on.

3. Tinkered with keyboard connector and reconnected it a lot with no luck.

4. Unplugged Ram and tried powering on with motherboard's ram.

5. Unplugged battery and plugged charging adapter, even the lights didn't work.

6. I already resetted Windows in the past and switched between Linux distros but the buttons didn't work with any of the OSs.

7. Tried to short circuit the first and second pins of keyboard connector.

I am a Computer Engineering sophomore and my exams are starting in two days. I really need this laptop to power up as I can't study and attend some exams without it. I don't have time to replace keyboard and I don't even think that would help as it failed with others. I need a quick solution, please help me.

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JackE

You can try using a soft bristle facial blush brush with compressed air to try to remove hygroscopic debris (maybe food crumbs?) that have probably accumulated on the key switches under the key covers. Be careful not to brush too hard under the key covers or they might come off. They are difficult to put back on.

rustincohle

@JackE I ended up giving it to a third-party service. They have found a burned transistor on motherboard and fixed it. After that, the keyboard connector pins started to work. However, the keyboard keys still didn't work so they replaced it with an original and a third-party keyboards but both of them didn't work either. They just told me that they will look into it again. Do you have any idea what could be the reason for the new keyboard not to work?

JackE

>>>They have found a burned transistor on motherboard>>>

Sorry, a burned out power transistor usually means addtional damage to more delicate integrated-circuit chips on the mainboard. Probably due to a power surge. An external keyboard would probably be the most practical solution.

rustincohle

Hi again @JackE, the service guys found a half-working keyboard(it is a red predator keyboard). The power key works on this one but some other keys are still not working. Another problem is when booting up it says no bootable device. But on the bios menu I can clearly see my SSD. They are suggesting a multiplexer issue with the keyboard and saying it will take time to check, but they don't have any idea about the disk.

JackE

The SSD can be checked out on the USB port of another machine using an inexpensive USB-2-SSD adapter. Less than $10. The bigger issue is still probable irreversible IC chip damage to the mainboard after finding a burned-out power transistor.

padgett

Have run laptops before with external monitor keyboard and mouse. That might be one option but is sounding like you need a new device. Can often get great deals on boxing day or from acerrecertified.com. Are even some win 10s for under $200: NX.A6WAA.002 with replaceable HDD.

rustincohle

Hi again @JackE , I got my laptop back a week ago. Sorry for asking this late. When I got it the laptop was still saying no bootable device. My OS is arch linux and by default arch won't boot when secure boot is enabled. Turns out it was enabled. I guess the bios battery run out and resetted bios settings. By disabling I booted into my laptop and started testing the new predator keyboard. Most keys are working fine including the power button. The problem is not-working keys are responding but the output is different key or something else. For example, 'e' vs 'y', and 'i' vs 'k' keys have switched outputs. 'q', 'z', numpad's '4' are literally pausing/starting videos in the background. The '3' key's output is 'q'. The upper arrow key outputs '400;3u401;3u407;3u' and the down arrow '402;3u405;3u' in bash. Is it something solvable? Couldn't find anything on the internet either.

JackE

>>>started testing the new predator keyboard.>>>

Is this a predator external desktop keyboard? Or a predator laptop keyboard? Due to BIOS chip/mainboard differences, neither predator keyboard will work as expected with another laptop like the A515 series even with Win10. Even less so with Linux.

rustincohle

It is a laptop keyboard and they already replaced it with my old one. I thought there could be a workaround with some software or so. Thanks for the help.

JackE

I still don't understand why the predator keyboard was used instead of the correct keyboard which seems to widely available and used in many different A5 models.

rustincohle

The guy told me he had tried a lot of acer keyboards including this model's and none worked except predator. There is another thing I should have said earlier: my original keyboard was Hungarian, but there are only Russian keyboards here, so they only tried Russian ones. Don't know exactly if that makes any difference as both have the same key layout with different alphabets.

JackE

You might want to try another shop.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/6a/h0wu6y3iaxjs.jpg

rustincohle

I actually thought of doing it but didn't try as it would get months for the delivery. Now that you mention it, I will try as soon as I have some time. Thanks for the help, Jack!