-: In this lesson, we're going to talk
about how you can replace the keyboard in your laptop.
Now, when it comes to replacing the keyboard
there are really three main things you can replace.
The first is the entire keyboard itself.
The second is particular keys in the keyboard
that may have broken off or stopped working
and need to be replaced,
and the third is the touch pad.
Now, in the old days, it was a lot easier to
replace the keyboard and the touch pad than it is today.
In modern keyboards, many of these are being soldered
down into the motherboard, and therefore
to replace that keyboard, you have to actually
understand how to do a micro miniature electronics repair
including how to do soldering.
Soldering is way beyond the scope of this course,
and for this reason, I'm not going to show you how to
replace a keyboard in a live demonstration
because it really is pretty complicated
and way beyond the scope of the A plus exam.
So instead, I want to focus on the parts
of the keyboard that you can replace easily.
Every manufacturer does this a little bit differently
so it's important to check the support section
of your manufacturer's website or check your manual
for how to properly replace a keyboard.
Now, in the old days, keyboards could actually be replaced
by using a simple flat ribbon cable using a ZIF
or Zero Insertion Force Connector.
These connectors were a small ribbon cable
that would simply go into a slot
and you would have a little clamp that would hold
that into place, and that would send the signal
from the keyboard to the motherboard
so it could detect which key you were pressing.
In some of these older models where keyboard
replacements were more common, especially
in laptops that were designed for business
or enterprise users, they made it very simple to
replace the keyboard, and it would involve simply
disassembling the plastic chassis around the laptop
taking off the bevel from the front
and then being able to pull that laptop keyboard out
by removing two or three screws
and unplugging this zero insertion force cable
or ribbon cable.
Unfortunately, as I said, most modern laptops
especially those designed for home users or gamers
are designed with a soldered keyboard
and this significantly increases the difficulty
of changing out a keyboard.
Similarly, replacing a touchpad
or trackpad follows much the same process.
You need to get the track pad
or touchpad removed by simply removing the bezel
finding the screws that hold it into place
and then unscrewing those.
The touchpad or track pad will also connect
to the motherboard using a zero insertion force cable
or a flat ribbon cable with a proprietary pin out.
In either case, if you're going to replace the keyboard
or touchpad, you're going to have to use one directly
from your manufacturer because these are not compatible
across different manufacturers or even
across different models inside of one manufacturer's lineup.
For example, I can't take a keyboard
from a MacBook Pro and put it into a MacBook Air.
Similarly, I can't even take the keyboard
from a 2022 MacBook Pro and put it into a 2018 MacBook Pro
because those two models use different types of keyboards.
Now, in addition to being able to change
out the keyboard or track pad, sometimes you'll
have a single key that needs to be replaced.
For example, my wife's laptop currently has a problem
with her C and N keys.
I don't know what she's typing but for some reason
her C and N keys have worn completely off
and so when I look at her keyboard
I can see all the letters on her keyboard but when I get
to the C or the N, all I see is a big white smudge.
This is because those keys have been used down over time
and there's some kind of a defect in those keys.
Now, instead of replacing the entire keyboard though
I can replace those single keys and to do this
I simply can take a pair of tweezers, pull that key cap off
and then replace it by putting a new key cap back on.
To do this, you'll use either tweezers or a flat blade
such as a pry tool to be able to expose the retainer clip
underneath those keys.
At that point you can take the cap
off of the top of the key and then replace it
or if that key is not working properly
you may have to replace the retainer clip underneath it.
These retainer clips are what takes the mechanical push
of the button from when you push the letter key down
into the keyboard and translates that
into an electrical signal understood by the motherboard.
Now, when you're finished replacing the retainer clip
or the overall key cap, all you have to do is push it back
into place and it will snap
into the right location and be ready for use again.
Overall changing out a key is pretty easy
but changing out an entire keyboard is a pretty
painful process these days even for somebody
who knows what they're doing it can take
one to two hours to properly disassemble the laptop
get to the keyboard components, desolder it from the board
replace it with the new one
resolder it back in
and put the entire thing back together
and operationally test it to ensure you fixed the problem.
For this reason, if you have a laptop that's older
than about two years old
sometimes it's actually cheaper just to buy a new laptop
than it is to replace the keyboard
because of the expensive labor cost involved
with replacing the entire keyboard.