My Left Ctrl key has died - any suggestions?
 

Slightly random question here, but I throw it out to you.

Has anybody got any suggestions for what I could do to try and fix my laptop's left Ctrl key? Until yesterday it was working fine, and then all of a sudden it ceased to do anything. I've tried the usual rebooting and uninstalling/reinstalling the keyboard drivers, but to no avail.

It doesn't appear to have any more dust underneath it than any of the other keys (and I've blown most of that away). It may just be broken - in which case I can have a nice round of emailing the manufacturers - but if anybody has any handy tips for checking that it's not some random software issue that would be great. I noticed when I ran this that pressing my Alt Gr key appeared to register as a left Ctrl press as well as a right Alt press, but I can never remember if that isn't supposed to be intentional.

Pop the key off, and make sure there's nothing lodged under there that's disturbing the contact.

Difficult to do easily with a laptop keyboard, but I could certainly try that.

I've done it a couple of times myself, it's easier than you would think, although a couple of the keys are more difficult to reattach than others.

That is indeed the way it should be.

I can second that. It's pretty easy to get them off with some leverage, or fingernails. Wider keys are a bit more difficult to put back on because they have a metal thingy along them (and the space bar is a horror, for obvious reasons), but the Control key should be no problem at all.



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