Computer problems and/or advice 2012

[Martinr]

Amazon, £8.67 and free delivery! Brian could still have a half pint

[Palustris]

Turn upside down and shake. The keyboard not Brian........oh I don't know though!

[brianw]

Check out the local charity shops, and hope it has the right plug on.

[David Pilling]

Interesting that all keys are affected - a lot of muck drops between keys, if you ever pull a keyboard to bits it is fairly unpleasant. You can usually do that, pull the key caps off, get your toothbrush and clean things up. However as they've said above, keyboards are super cheap these days, that is why they don't last.

The all keys affected thing may go along with something like the panel inside the keyboard that holds the switches coming loose.

[shelagh]

Thanks foradvice but ts a laptop.

[ChrisB]

Ooh  hard lines Shelagh.  If you have the right plug holes, you might be able to buy a cordless keyboard to use instead.  It works for my mouse, so might for your laptop, though I've never tried it, never needed to actually.

[David Pilling]

Get a USB keyboard (maybe borrow it off a desktop machine) plug in to your lap top. You can tell it is a USB keyboad by the plug fitting (USB - flat rectangular plug, PS/2 round).

[Susan Band]

Give it a vacuum. Other idea is that most of the keys can unclip and you can see what is happening ie dirt, soil, dog hairs etc. I have 2 keys that are removed completly, you just have to remember which ones.
Susan

[Martinr]

USB connection keyboard will work. I use one all the time as laptop keyboard drives me mad. The Amazon £8.67 is a USB unit.

[Alan_b]

On the other hand, a new keyboard for a laptop typically costs £20 to £30.  Some keyboards are easy to disconnect and refit, others less so.  It depends on your particular laptop make and model.

[shelagh]

Thanks all I'll ty he hoover first.

[TC]

My router has been playing up.  I got disconnected regularly so, I bit the bullet and called for technical assistance -TalkTalk ! They have call centres in India, Philippines, South Africa and the UK.  It is a matter of pot-luck which one you get.
Please let it be a native English speaker as Scottish accents can cause problems.  The Indian gentleman was called "John"- likely ?  I told him I had a dud router but had to go through the "take the cables out . etc, reset the router" rigmarole and after 20 minutes I was told that I had a dud router.

As an extremely "valuable" customer, they would supply me with a free WiFi replacement if I signed up for an 18 months contract at the same price
As it was not costing any more, I said OK.  Then the next crunch, It would take up to 10 working days before I would receive it.   I then asked for a refund of my monthly fee as they were not supplying the service for which I was paying. Then I was referred to another dept. which just happened to be closed at that time.
As I had spent about 40 minutes over this I gave up for the night.

I disconnected the router and then had a bright idea.  I wrapped it in a polythene bag and put it in the freezer.  Next morning I reconnected it and it worked flawlessly for a week.  It failed again so I gave it the same treatment and it worked fine until the replacement router arrived.  I let it run for another 2 weeks and then I replaced it with the WiFi model.

I don't know the technical reason why this worked - my initial thought was that electrical circuits don't like heat.
The moral is that if your router is giving problems, try this temporary cure.

[David Pilling]

Ah reminds me of happy days putting hard discs in the fridge - didn't work but worth a try. All electronics is susceptible to temperature variations, even if it is only bad contacts being shifted by thermal expansion.

Tech support on ADSL has not been happy for me (demon), the folk far away are effective but they're working to a script, no explanations just orders. And one real effect of distance they're often cut off. Last time I had problems I bought a new router/modem, it seemed easier than putting in the effort on the phone being told to buy one.

[Anthony Darby]

Kids who stole car radios put them in the freezer to jigger the code mechanism!

[Alan_b]

happy days putting hard discs in the fridge - didn't work but worth a try.

I've got this to work a few times; less often than not however.