[Jornada 720] Weird keyboard issue

I got myself a J720 and just now I've got some free time to play with it extensively.

The main problem is the keyboard issue related to the HP quick pad hotkey in the first row. Often the keyboard will not respond unless I press the HP quick pad button, and this will occur after a soft power-on, at the Welcome screen, on the "do you want to erase the RAM" screen after a main battery pull, and may even randomly happen at normal use (either will the keyboard refuse to respond or HP quick pad will open itself). This does not happen while the device is off or docked in the base station (also off).

Before tearing it apart (and not screwing all up like I did with a J680), has anyone ever had this problem, and is there a solution?

Thanks

Edited by systremor 2020-04-04 10:34 PM

I just recently had a similar problem...j720 keyboard was dead...no keys worked except power on and off. I had forgotten how easy it is to remove the keyboard by unscrewing the 3 anterior screws on the underside...but thanks to the HPCFactor soon found the teardown on it. I swapped out a keyboard working on a spare j720 of mine and it worked fine and reassured me the problem was not the motherboard.

What I found , in my case, was the space bar key had a misplaced bit of glue gun glue...something from a prior fix of mine...anyway it was trapped under the key cover and was continuously pressing down on the rubber key button underneath the key bar. The key covers are very easy to remove (gently) by prying up on the anterior edge of the key with a fingernail. I removed the glue glob and replaced it with some foam tape and voila...works fine now!

My best guess is you have some debris under the key cover that episodically interferes with the rebound of the underlying rubber button thing-y. Might want to check that out... The key cover is easy to re-install...just line it up in its proper place and gently press down and it will click into place.

Edited by joval 2020-04-14 5:01 PM








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In the meantime, another problem came up. The Jornada was completely dead. The green light on the charger lights up (it's sitting on the dock pretty much the whole time when not used) but doesn't respond at all. I've ended up sticking a bit of sellotape onto the backplate of the keyboard, so the keyboard flex cable and the keyboard backplate don't get in contact with each other. That seems like a fix; HP quick pad doesn't come up anymore and the Jornada now works flawlessly again... weird.

Sounds to me like you have some kind of problem with the keyboard ribbon cable or its insertion into the board connector...your tape may just be holding it in a stable position. There is no such thing as Jornada Voodoo ?!! (That is other than the irrational urge to buy more and more of these little buggers)