HP Omen 15 5 Keyboard Keys Broken The Rest Work

[phil_c64]

Hello, I have 5 keyboard keys not working all of a sudden. The number 2, Capslock, tab, escape & ` (the one to the left of number 1) on my OMEN Laptop 15-en1000sa (3X8V0EA).

They are all in the top left-hand corner of the keyboard. Nothing was spilt there, all other keys work. 

So far I've tried:

1. UEFI hardware diagnostic tests - all pass except the keyboard
2. Windows diagnostic test - all pass except the keyboard
3. Uninstalled & re-installed keyboard driver
4. I tried loading up a virtual machine to see if it was software (eg win11) however it behaved the same in Ubuntu too.
5. Took out the battery in case of overheating and turned back on (long shot)

To add even more complications to it every now and then they all turn on for a bit then stop again. I'd say 98% of the time they don't work.

I've been hesitant about replacing the keyboard and top cover as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8eM4iDdRF8&t=1235s shows that virtually every part needs removing first.

I wondered if anyone had any other suggestions?

Thanks for your time.

[phil_c64]

The keys have started working again which is very strange and now are working 90% of the time. I started investigating if the CPU or GPU is overheating, so installed Core Temp for Windows 11 to monitor - it's not but might be useful for others if they have similar problems and see this. Putting new thermal paste on might also help.

The battery health is good and not overheating too. 

The only thing I've done is turn the machine off for a few hours and turn it back on. At this point I'm going to work under the assumption it could be a loose ribbon cable connection or the keyboard is just intermittently broken - but to go from pretty much not working at all to pretty much working all the time seems v odd to me.