HP HDX-18t Laptop Keyboard Replacement

For whatever reason, I've decided to post some of my projects on the blog. It's probably because I'm planning to replace the head gaskets on my Subaru soon and have spent some time reading helpful accounts of others who've had the same project. We'll see if I post the details of the head gasket job. I already know it's going to be a pain, but since I don't charge myself labor I should be able to save around $2,000.

This project started Monday night when I got home from the hospital. Michelle told me the kids had pulled all the keys off of my laptop. The kids were very sorry and Michelle had taken at least 2 hours trying to put the keys back on. Of course, many of them were broken and irreparable. After getting over the initial shock and anger, I found a new keyboard online for $36 after shipping and after reading the factory manual figured out it would be an easy replacement process.

First I removed the 6 screws which secured the switch cover (red arrows).

Then I pried off the switch cover, which reminded me how much I hate plastic things that snap together. If I don't break something trying to unsnap it, I always feel like I'm going to. Thankfully, I didn't break anything important this time.

Seeing my computer with the cover removed gave me a new appreciation for the sound my 2 little speakers can generate, and for amount of dust and junk inside my laptop.

Next I removed the keyboard cover. Again prying carefully just waiting for some vital plastic part to snap off.

The green arrow marks the ribbon cable that I removed, though in hindsight I could have avoided a lot of headache by just leaving the cable attached and the keyboard cover flipped up as it is in the picture. My fingers were too fat for the skinny short cable and I ended up using my needle driver to push the cable back into the slot.

Removing the keyboard's physical connection is as simple as removing the screws marked by red arrows plus 2 screws on the back of the laptop. After those screws are removed the top of the keyboard lifts up and the bottoms tabs just slide out of their grooves.

The final step is removing the ribbon cable which attaches the keyboard to the motherboard electrically. This should have been simple as the service manual states, "Release the zero insertion force (ZIF) connector to which the keyboard cable is attached and disconnect the keyboard cable from the system board," but I had to pry whole socket apart. Again I'm glad I didn't break some vital little plastic nubbin.

The lower arrow is the socket into which the keyboard ribbon connector slides and the upper arrow is the ZIF attachment that secures the cable in the socket. As it turns out I could have just flipped up the ZIF with my fingernail to release the old keyboard ribbon (the black piece pivots over the pins and upper half of the white piece) put the new ribbon in and pushed the ZIF back down, but of course I had to pop it off completely, lose it under the table, locate it, and figure out how it is supposed to work. Naturally that doubled the time for the keyboard replacement and caused much anxiety and frustration.

As they say in the service manuals, "Installation is the reverse of removal."

Luckily this project turned out perfectly and this keyboard (You should've seen it before Michelle spent 2 hours with the keys.) got replaced by a shiny new one with fully functioning keys.