T520 with bizarre keyboard behavior

[that1nerd]

Hello again, it's been a while. I recently received my old T520 back after selling it to a friend to get him through school. When I first received it and looked the machine over, I started to notice it developed a lot of strange quirks I've yet to see from a ThinkPad of this generation. Was curious if anyone would have input on this, as I'm frankly stumped at this point.

Here's what's happening. The machine will boot into Windows just fine, the trackpoint and touch pad will work for a time, but when I go to type anything, Windows starts misbehaving as if a modifier or FN key is being held down. When that happens, the click buttons for the trackpoint/touch pad stop responding. Also, when I go into the BIOS setup, I get the "invalid input" beep when trying to navigate the menu with the arrow keys, specifically with the "down" key. The only way I can get this to stop is when I disconnect the main keyboard and plug in a USB keyboard instead.

So, it would be safe to assume it's a keyboard issue, right? That's when I bought a used "tested working" one off of eBay, but it's giving the exact same problems when I install it. Either I got a bad keyboard again, or there's something wrong with the motherboard itself. Hoping there's something simple that I'm overlooking before I start throwing more money at this machine, as I'd rather put my time and money into a newer Thinkpad if it's a motherboard issue.

[dr_st]

Is there a chance anything was spilt on the keyboard connector on the board? I would start by cleaning it thoroughly and carefully with alcohol.

[nfraser01]

Is there a chance anything was spilt on the keyboard connector on the board? I would start by cleaning it thoroughly and carefully with alcohol.

Agree; time to move on to the connector and then motherboard. However...

Have you tried it using another operating system? Weird/intermittant problems are most likely to be electrical, but before you spend more money try booting into a Linux distribution to confirm the keyboard has the same problem on an alternate operating system (I realise you have already discussed BIOS navigation issues so unlikely)

HTH

[deickos]

*20 keyboards although still acceptable due to 7row layout are trash compared to older ones - i'd say it seems like a humidity issue, maybe putting it under moderate heat will do maybe not