The keys 'N, M, H, J, Y, U, 6 and 7' stop working intermittently.

[DOSpeight]

Per the title, since two days ago those specific keys will sometimes stop working and I have to use the virtual keyboard to substitute. Looking at the keyboard it seems to be a physical 'area' on it and not randomly spaced keys (the F keys above seem fine however). I have my doubts it is a hardware problem and think it is more of a software issue because of the randomness, it will stop working no matter how hard or how much I press a key until all the affected keys start working again.

I have not dropped my laptop or spilled any liquid on it (recently). I did not have any recent system updates that could have caused it, the last one was a BIOS update a month ago and the keyboard was fine after that until now.

Some default suggestions I have tried are: deleting and reinstalling the drivers, doing a hard reset, troubleshooting, doing a hardware / component diagnostic, putting the BIOS settings to default, running the recovery manager.

[KrazyToad]

@DOSpeight

Welcome to HP Community

I have gone through your Post and would like to help

Did you run a Keyboard Test from F2 Diagnostic?

- Hold the power button for at least five seconds to turn off the Notebook.
- Turn on the computer and immediately press Esc repeatedly, about once every second. 
- When the menu appears, press the F2 key.
- On the main menu, click Component Tests and Keyboard

Keep me posted

If the information I've provided was helpful, give us some reinforcement by clicking the "Solution Accepted" on this Post and it will also help other community members with similar issue.

[DOSpeight]

Yes, that is something I've already tried and it didn't detect any problem. The keys have stopped working permanently now and I still haven't found a solution that doesn't require taking it apart which I'm keen to avoid.

[The_Fossette]

@DOSpeight

What was the result of the keyboard test? Did it give you any failure ID?

Meanwhile, I recommend you uninstall the keyboard driver from the device manager and then restart the computer and check if it helps.

Here is how it is done.

1. Type "Device Manager" into the search field to open the device manager console.
2. Expand the node that represents the type of device that you want to uninstall, right-click the device entry, and click Uninstall.
3. On the Confirm Device Removal dialog box, click OK to start the uninstall process.
4. When the uninstall process is complete, remove the device.

NOTE: On the Confirm Device Removal dialog box, click the Delete the driver software for this device option to delete the driver package that was used for the device.

Let me know how it goes and you have a great day!

If you wish to show appreciation for my efforts, mark my post as Accept as Solution. Your feedback counts!

Cheers!

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