Keyboard malfunction after BIOS update and Windows 7 installation

[gbhfish]

Hello there. Can anyone help?

I have a Sony VAIO VGN-FE31Z. This was first shipped with XP. A few months later, I installed a Vista update onto a new partition. I lived with my dual boot very successfully until last week when I decided to upgrade to Windows 7. I did a clean install of Windows 7, wiping my Vista partition. Unfortunately, when I tried to install my applications (originally shipped with the Vista upgrade disk) an error message came up saying that the disk only worked with Vista.

I therefore clean installed Vista back onto this partition. In the course of this, following the Sony instructions, I updated my BIOS. Once Vista had installed, and I had then added Vista SP1 and reloaded my applications using the Sony disk, I then upgraded to Windows 7 again - in update mode, rather than a clean install.

When it came to enter my product key, I noticed that a couple of the laptop's keyboard keys were not working. But I was able to enter the code with a bit of persistence.

Unfortunately, once in Windows, the laptop keyboard continued to malfunction, with the K, S, A, B and M letter keys failing to respond, as well as the . key and the down cursor. I uninstalled the keyboard driver and rebooted. Windows found the keyboard and reinstalled the driver. However the problem remained after another restart. I therefore booted XP and observed the same problem - although the keyboard driver was ostensibly different. Finally, I entered the BIOS and noted that the down cursor was not working in that environment either.

I have today started to use a USB keyboard and it works absolutely perfectly.

I have reached the conclusion that the BIOS update must have caused a problem. But I might be wrong. Either way: does anyone have any suggestions?

I'm sure I should be leaving more system information. The BIOS version is R0172J3 - unfortunately I don't have the previous version number noted anywhere. All other specs are unchanged from factory shipping, except of course for the OS, as above.

Thanks for any advice.

[SpywareDr]

Welcome to VirtualDr

Don't know that it'll work but, have you tried resetting the BIOS/CMOS to Factory Defaults?

[gbhfish]

Thanks for your welcome and reply.

I have entered the BIOS and restored factory settings, if that's what you mean (I'm afraid I'm really NOT a BIOS expert) but with no affect. I wondered whether I could restore the original version of the BIOS. But I don't have the original version number and can't track it down anywhere on the Sony website.

Or is there any other way of restoring the BIOS? For example, with a jumper on the motherboard or by removing the CMOS battery? Or is it likely that my recovery partition could help i.e. if I performed a system recovery would that involve resetting the BIOS to the original version number?

Thanks.

[SpywareDr]

Resetting the CMOS via a jumper, removing the CMOS battery or resetting it to Factory Defaults will not change the version. To change the version would require reflashing the chip.