Please help me resolve my parade of keyboard and now Wifi issues with the Overpowered 17+ / OP-LP3 / Tongfang GK7CN6S

[MajoraZ]

Tl;dr:

 

1. I need to know how to turn the Wifi on and off, or have it on on startup, as if I pushed the FN+F4 radio on/off key (I've tried messing with the adapter in the control panel/device manager already, no dice unless i'm missing something);

 

2. and/or a solution for the keyboard keys going off and being detected as pressed even though i'm not pressing them.

 

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I've had this laptop for 4 years, and I like it, got it for like 700$ despite it having 32gb of RAM (which I have since upgraded to 64gb), a 8750H, and GTX 1060, which even today I can't seem to find for this price.

 

However, as of a few months ago (a while after I switched out a bulging battery and upgraded the RAM, I might have messed up the keyboard ribbon cable while doing so, I think in retrospect, since what I now know is that cable I had to remove and replug in for the battery replacement) the keyboard started to repeat keys on it's own even when I pushed nothing: I figured it was just debris beneath the key switches, as I've had similar issues or keys NOT pushing in the past, presumbly because there are large gaps between the keycaps and small gaps in the switches that stuff falls through...

 

...however, unlike in the past, the issue never went away, and spread to multiple keys. I tried cleaning the keyboard tray, I brought them to a repair place who tried removing the key switches and cleaning them and the conductive membrane they contact, which didn't fix it either. I even tried unistalling the keyboard drivers and forced windows to not reinstall them on startup via the command line (as explained here), and then just used a USB keyboard, which worked, except the FN+F1-F12 key functions, which control stuff like sleep mode, "Radio"/the wifi, the screen brightness,and some other things I don't understand, still went off on their own, since I guess those are seperate things from the normal keys.

 

Eventually, I got confirmation what ribbon cable internally was the one for the keyboard, and just removed that, and am using a USB keyboard. This works!...

 

...Except at some point, the laptop stopped having wifi enabled on startup. It has ALWAYS required me to manually connect to a network on startup, as far as I remember, but the actual wifi adapter was still enabled.

 

One of the keys that it pushed on it's own after I disabled the keyboard drivers disabled the Wifi adapter (I believe it was FN+F4, which is "Radio on-off", that disables and renables the adapter I've found when I put the ribbon cable back in), and I couldn't find a way to renable it. Eventually, disabling and renabling it in the control panel fixed it.

 

However, now, whenever the laptop starts up, it is set to that disabled state on startup, and without the ribbon cable connected, I can't push any of those keys to renable it. Disabling and renabling the wifi adapter via the device manager or the control panel no longer fixes it either. I don't know if there was a SEPERATE FN+F_ key combo that set it do to do this on startup or something, but I can't figure it out. I've tried looking in the BIOS, and I don't see a setting there either.

 

So, with that all said:

 

1. Anybody got any ideas for what's causing the keyboard issue? If I have to, i'm fine just using a USB keyboard and leaving the ribbon cable out (wifi thing aside), but if it can be fixed that'd be great. I cannot buy a new keyboard and swap it out, the repair shop I brought the laptop too said there are plastic seals and stuff the mobo and keyboard are encased in that had to be outright broken and then resealed with glue when they tried to clean it out before, and they outright refused to go through that again even if I bought a replacement.

 

This post on the old Notebook review thread for the 15 inch model has a user saying they switched out the entire ribbon cable, which I'd be willing to try if I can do that without disassembling everything, so if anybody has input there, let me know.

 

2. Does anybody have an idea for how I can change that wifi setting without access to the FN+F4 key combo? Either via the BIOS, some windows setting, command line, whatever.

 

Via this and this post(s) on reddit, I know some people have made custom BIOS's for the 15in model, and custom versions of the OP control center program which controls fan speeds, RGB lighting, and some of the functions of the other FN key combos, many of those custom BIOS and utilities which were on the notebookreview thread for the 15in model, compiled on the first page. The Overpowered support site also has updated BIOS and wifi drivers from 2019 I don't think I ever installed I can try.

 

Does anybody think I should experiment with those, or have contacts with any users who made the utilities on those fourms? Or like, a way I can search through both the 15 inch and 17 in threads? Waybackmachine seems to have every page of both archived. but manually going through them 1 by 1 is so tedious.

 

Thank you!

 

Here are also a bunch of teardown videos, spare part photos (none of my specific laptop, just others of the same model or other rebrands of the tongfang model), etc I've collected while trying to identify keyboard ribbon cable (which I now know the one to be circled in magenta):

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3yLV514-uY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAG7RKeum4M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B5gDzPWmL0

https://linustechtips.com/uploads/monthly_2022_10/qwqweqweqwe.png.ec496f648fba686370d4f367b6d8ed70.png

https://linustechtips.com/uploads/monthly_2022_10/asdasdasd.png.bbdad677337d86d5498cf2b0353f28f9.png