Keyboard and WiFi act strange / don't work after rearranging

Community Support
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Hi :slight_smile:

Framework Laptop 16 with a Ryzen 7 7840HS running EndeavourOS here.

I just moved the touchpad to the left and the keyboard is acting strange now. This configuration has worked before and the previous configuration also doesn’t work.

The keyboard emits lots of keypresses, could be pressing ctrl or just spamming lots of Ds. Most of what I press on the keyboard doesn’t do anything. Sometimes, it’ll do something completely different. The touchpad and the numpad work. While the random action is going on, the WiFi adapter will reset a lot until it doesn’t come back.

To be able to do anything, I removed the keyboard and attached another one via USB. Sadly, the touchpad doesn’t do anything when the keyboard is not installed.

I also noticed the power LED is cycling ‘off → orange → blue`.

Because it has been working earlier, I’m thinking about what I might have done differently and it could be that the laptop wasn’t yet completely shut down while I removed the touchpad.

What kind of connection is behind the pogo pins? Have a it shorted something while sliding down the touchpad? Pretty sure the shutdown was complete by the time I put it back in.

Is there any hope of getting it back to work? Luckily, there are replacements parts for everything - I just don’t know what to replace..

Thank you for any responses and kind regards!

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On an FL16 the keyboard is USB through the pogo pins. The touchpad is I2C, and also controls when the keyboard and number pad are powered, i.e. if you remove the touchpad the keyboard gets turned off. But there are other protections as well so that if a keyboard or number pad gets left off then there is no power at the pogo pins to cause problems if they get shorted.

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Thanks! I can confirm there is 5V on all the “slots” that can connect with either keyboard or touchpad.

That led me to try a different combination: Numpad to the left and keyboard to the right. It works like that and I can type these words without the external keyboard.

But it uses the same “slots” as the combination that doesn’t work :face_with_spiral_eyes:

If the USB slots are alright and numpad+keyboard+touchpad all work, maybe the I2C slot that is used when the touchpad is on the left is the culprit? The keyboard isn’t active when the touchpad isn’t attached, so there is still some logic that I can’t see through.

Probably, I should let it rest for a day just in case I’ve “thought myself into a corner” here.