Can't seem to put back keyboard ribbon on my Clevo, need help!

[IamTechknow]

Hey everyone, I been lurking here for a while but now found myself needing help.

 

I decided to remove all the ribbon cables on the keyboard of my Clevo P960ED to I can shake it and blow compressed air to clean it. Well I turns out I literally can't put back the big ribbon cable!

 

There are two smaller cables and I found for both I can put it inside a slot of space between the tab and port so that it goes in a little and then push down the tab to secure it. I can't seem to do that all for the big cable though, see attached picture. No matter what I seem to do I can't put it inside a slot or push the tab down, the cable always end up loose when I release my finger. I ended up breaking off a tiny bit of plastic from the tab but I don't think that made any difference yet.

 

Any advice to put back the ribbon cable to the slot? And yeah I'll be sure to never take it out again!

 

 

[razor0601]

When you lock the clip it doesn’t stays in this position?

[IamTechknow]

When I try to lock the tab after lining up the ribbon cable, the tab won't go down enough to lock AFAICT. Forcing it down can cause the ribbon cable to move away from the electrical contacts so it's not connected, or in my case resulted in a small bit of plastic breaking off (I couldn't lock the tab before that)

 

Anyway I did some research and I think this is a salvageable situation. The tab, which is still largely intact, in my photo above is a 24 pin Molex FFC Easy-On front connector, so there's cheap to find replacements in digikey or eBay. I also found YouTube videos about a hack to secure it with tape and paper and another one to solder on a replacement part. I think the first video is enough for me to secure it, at least long enough until I buy a new gaming laptop (this one is 3.5 years old) or build a desktop. I haven't soldered in a long time let alone on a laptop so the 2nd video is a last resort.

 

 

 

 

[razor0601]

Maybe something in the corners is blocking the clip because of Broken plastic parts?

[IamTechknow]

21 hours ago, razor0601 said:

Maybe something in the corners is blocking the clip because of Broken plastic parts?

No that is definitely not the case, I can put the tab in the "down" position, just not with the cable inserted. There's no other broken plastic other than the bit that broke off.

 

Even though I was asking for help I'll keep posting about my efforts to repair my laptop!

 

Anyway I found that my computer will boot fine without the keyboard connected, and I can even enter the BIOS with a USB keyboard!

 

I tried to clamp down the ribbon cable with tesa 61395 tape and while I was able to get the cable in place, the laptop keyboard still wasn't connected. Furthermore it seems I can pull the tab partially out (most likely due to the broken plastic bit) which reveals there's a gap between the pins the cable can go through. So my best guess is even when I can get the cable in contact with the metal pins on the connector, it's won't work until I can put it all the way in.

 

I havethe iFixit tesa pre-cut card so I'm going to get a roll of the tape before I try again. If I can't get it to work, I'll try to remove or even break off the tab from the connector and then follow the youtube video (

)

[Scruffy]

check that the clip is fully opened and in perfect place. take the ribbon cable and try to insert in getting it into the space between the metal pins on top. make it a bit facing the bottom side and then try to slide it in. if u still cant , take the ribbon cable from that blue plastic end and try again.

[aldarxt]

Y

On 8/15/2022 at 11:37 PM, IamTechknow said:

Hey everyone, I been lurking here for a while but now found myself needing help.

 

I decided to remove all the ribbon cables on the keyboard of my Clevo P960ED to I can shake it and blow compressed air to clean it. Well I turns out I literally can't put back the big ribbon cable!

 

There are two smaller cables and I found for both I can put it inside a slot of space between the tab and port so that it goes in a little and then push down the tab to secure it. I can't seem to do that all for the big cable though, see attached picture. No matter what I seem to do I can't put it inside a slot or push the tab down, the cable always end up loose when I release my finger. I ended up breaking off a tiny bit of plastic from the tab but I don't think that made any difference yet.

 

Any advice to put back the ribbon cable to the slot? And yeah I'll be sure to never take it out again!

 

 

Yeah! I did the same thing when I got my goboxx, nothing was wrong with it, but like a bull in a china shop, I stuck my hoofs in there and broke the retaining clip for the keyboard trying to put it back in. so I used an external keyboard till my brain lights went on and cut up a plastic bottle with scissors to fit exactly on top of the ribbon and a slightly snug fit and it worked. I've also done this on m18xr2 interposer, that clip broke too and its much easier to connect and disconnect. You may have to sand paper the plastic bottle piece till it fits in

[Eban]

2 hours ago, aldarxt said:

Y

Yeah! I did the same thing when I got my goboxx, nothing was wrong with it, but like a bull in a china shop, I stuck my hoofs in there and broke the retaining clip for the keyboard trying to put it back in. so I used an external keyboard till my brain lights went on and cut up a plastic bottle with scissors to fit exactly on top of the ribbon and a slightly snug fit and it worked. I've also done this on m18xr2 interposer, that clip broke too and its much easier to connect and disconnect. You may have to sand paper the plastic bottle piece till it fits in

 

 

Nice improvisation!

I broke the screen digitizer connector on my 7202 rugged tablet...similar connector just smaller. Its just held in with tape now and has been working ok for months.

But I will keep this idea in mind 

[IamTechknow]

Thanks for chiming in, didn't realize someone else would have gone thru this problem, I guess notebooktalk attracts us kind of people 🙂

 

I'm using an external keyboard to type on the laptop but yeah I'm starting to look into clamping the ribbon cable down somehow. The problem I see with my laptop is there's not much space between the keyboard and the cable so I'm trying to use tesa tape which is super sticky, double sided and is only 2mm high. Also now I have removed the tab without breaking it any further, see photos below. I can actually put the cable all the way in in the gap between the two sets of pins.

 

I cut up part of an old insurance card, align tape on it and then press it on the ribbon cable, but the keyboard still didn't quite work (first and 3rd photos). However at one point the keyboard light up blue so the LED portion works but not the keys... So yeah I'm going to try to wedge/clamp the cable with something. Waiting for the roll of tesa tape to come in!

 

(don't worry about the cracked black plastic sheet in the 3rd photo, those were created by using a screwdriver to push up the keyboard when taking the back panel 2 weeks after I bought the laptop before I realized I can use a iFixit opener to get the keyboard out safely)

 

 

 

[Scruffy]

those are called fpc connector. u can check pin number and pin pitch.then u can ask someone to solder a new one for u.

 

probably u have a 24 pin ffc fpc 24 pin 1mm pitch.

[jaybee83]

6 hours ago, IamTechknow said:

Thanks for chiming in, didn't realize someone else would have gone thru this problem, I guess notebooktalk attracts us kind of people 🙂

 

I'm using an external keyboard to type on the laptop but yeah I'm starting to look into clamping the ribbon cable down somehow. The problem I see with my laptop is there's not much space between the keyboard and the cable so I'm trying to use tesa tape which is super sticky, double sided and is only 2mm high. Also now I have removed the tab without breaking it any further, see photos below. I can actually put the cable all the way in in the gap between the two sets of pins.

 

I cut up part of an old insurance card, align tape on it and then press it on the ribbon cable, but the keyboard still didn't quite work (first and 3rd photos). However at one point the keyboard light up blue so the LED portion works but not the keys... So yeah I'm going to try to wedge/clamp the cable with something. Waiting for the roll of tesa tape to come in!

 

(don't worry about the cracked black plastic sheet in the 3rd photo, those were created by using a screwdriver to push up the keyboard when taking the back panel 2 weeks after I bought the laptop before I realized I can use a iFixit opener to get the keyboard out safely)

 

 

 

oh ure definitely not alone with this issue, i ran into the same and used a piece of precisely cut and folded paper / thin cardboard to wedge the cable into place. its not the most elegant solution and it usually takes several tries until all keyboard buttons work properly, but in the end it does work haha

[IamTechknow]

On 8/18/2022 at 3:53 AM, jaybee83 said:

oh ure definitely not alone with this issue, i ran into the same and used a piece of precisely cut and folded paper / thin cardboard to wedge the cable into place.

Yeah this is difficult for me to do. With the ribbon cable in, I haven't been able to put anything bigger than a sticky note pad on top of it, and folding it in half will cause it to no longer fit. Assuming it's as thick as a piece of paper I only got 0.004 inch/0.1mm to work with. I bent a few of the top pins slightly trying to jam a plastic card piece and the folded note pad in but it only fits in a few pins. I didn't want to risk bending them with tweezers b/c they would most likely break. Breaking the top pins likely wouldn't affect the laptop but...

 

I'm not even sure if wedging the ribbon cable down successfully would work for my case b/c even though the LED lighting still works I haven't been able to get the keyboard to work even for a few seconds. Here's what I mean:

 

I tried to press down the plastic card piece with 2mm tesa tape while it was right next to the top pins but not squeezed between them and the ribbon cable. That didn't work, the LEDs did its thing but the keys were non-responsive. I then tried to press down the ribbon cable end with a tweezer (the non-sharp end) while the laptop was on and the keyboard was held up (I didn't try pressing down on the entire cable with my finger as to not short anything). The keys still didn't work. The ribbon cable plastic has been damaged a little bit on two of the pins already so it's possible that part doesn't work anymore.

 

So after cleaning up and typing this up on this very laptop, I feel I haven't ruled out anything but the things I can try are more risky so I'm likely not going to try to fix the keyboard when a USB keyboard (and everything else with the laptop) still works. This laptop is 3.5 years old, so I'll probably upgrade within a year! (either a laptop or desktop, haven't thought about it yet)