Solved! Laptop Keyboard Shift Keys are Unreliable; Worth Purchasing a New PC?

[dominatorinator]

My Dell Inspiron 13 5368 laptop has been giving me some issues recently. First was an error with the power button which basically needed an absurd amount of force to get it to turn on. Then the backlit keyboard stopped registering when I first powered on the computer. Now I'm having some serious issues with my shift keys. They're absolutely unreliable in how they work. They won't allow me to use the alternative symbols on my number keys and when I encounter this error, capital letters are out of the question as well. The most confusing aspect of this however, is that by clicking shift 5 times I still encounter the Sticky Keys message. It seems to me that the hardware is messing up somewhere along the way, but by using enough force, I can get it to re-engage with the alternative symbols and capitals, and then it comes back to life for an uncertain amount of time.

My two questions are this: is it possible to fix this error with the shift keys, and if not is it worth purchasing a new laptop (aka is this one slowly dying on me, in which case I'd need a new one soon to transfer all my university work to)?

Cheers all, thanks for the help in advance!

 

[jsmithepa]

Is a subjective thing.

I can't suggest one way or the other just by going what u said. Personally, some once-a-while anomaly is "livable" to me, like my own laptop doesn't wake up right away and I have to hit the KBD a second time to wake it up, to me this is minor, nothing to make me to run out and buy$$ another laptop.

For you, a new keyboard is definitely in order, but replacing doesn't guarantee fix, so is a risk that you must ask yourself.

It depends how old is this laptop and whether it has everything u currently require. A laptop with a battery ~500 charge cycles will need a new battery soon, an unavoidable expense to be sure.