Question for the geeks

[selenay]

Just purely hypothetically, if one had accidentally knocked the C key off their laptop keyboard while removing it from the docking station, what would be the best way to reattached said C key?

Am I looking at sending my baby to a workshop to get this fixed?

It's a Dell lappie that was absolutely lovely until about fifteen minutes ago :-(

That bit about Christmas can only go up from here? I'm still waiting for the up.

Comments

[gmul.livejournal.com]

As mentioned above, should just(*) clip back on. If any of the tabs are broken then don't throw it away just yet but try and get a replacement as otherwise it's unlikely to go well. The exact method of reattachment can take a while to work out - I did see one which used a sort of scissor effect which was a complete nightmare. Others just clip in one place and are easy...

(*To make a bear skin rug, "just" catch a bear...)

[mingmerciless.livejournal.com]

I have a 2003/4 vintage Dell Inspiron 8500 and have knocked keys off it. It does indeed have a plastic scissor clip snap-in system for mounting keys. After my last accident where I did break the clip, I discovered there were guys on eBay who would sell individual clips and key caps. Never actually got round to ordering one though...

[selenay]

I'll contact Dell first and see whether I can get a replacement - I think that a teeny tiny little tab may be broken on the clip on the back of the key. If that fails, at least I know that I might be able to find something through eBay. It's not unusable at the moment, but it's inconvenient and worrying.

Hopefully the scissor arrangement (yup, it's one of those) won't be impossible to put back when I have an unbroken one.

Sometimes, I wonder whether I should be encased in cotton wool so that I can't touch things and break them.