Acer 5253 Keyboard problem - is it the keyboard or the connector/circuit board?

glenneg

I acquired an Acer Aspire 5253 and was told the keyboard is "broken". Turned it on and none of the keys typed anything or did anything. Touchpad, USB mouse, USB keyboard all worked fine. Watched online videos about taking the kb off, and did so. In the videos, the ribbon cable connector had a black plastic bar which was raised up, the ribbon cable slides under it, then push the black bar down to lock it in. Mine, maybe the factory ran out of the right connector that day, and used a different one to keep production going. A white bar slides horizontally, the ribbon cable is pushed under it (parallel to its sliding motion) but only goes in about 1/8", then push the white bar back in, trying to push the ribbon connector with it, to snug it up. Seems very shaky. Got it together and now, some keys work fine. Other keys, pushing it produces 2 letters - the key itself, and the letter or symbol for an adjacent key. It can be the one above, below, left, right. The correct letter can be 1st or 2nd. But for any given key, it is the same error each time. So, it the problem the kb, or the connector/circuit board? It is usable to me with an external USB keyboard, but having the built-in kb work would be nice. I can order a kb online for not too much money, but I would hate to do that and then find that does not fix it. Anyone experience this before?