ThinkPad P50 Intermittent Keyboard Issues

[DanielDK]

I recently ordered a ThinkPad P50 for work and I am finding that the internal keyboard periodically goes unresponsive for a short duration (30 seconds to a few minutes). The system is running Win10 with the latest firmware and drivers from the Lenovo site.

The trackpoint and trackpad continue to work in this fault condition. And most of the time, some of hotkeys (microphone mute) continue to respond, even though the rest of the keyboard (caps lock, num lock, normal keys) do not seem to register. I can always plug in a USB keyboard and I will be able to type. Sometimes the act of plugging in a USB keyboard will cause the internal keyboard to respond, but not always.

I've also tried re-seating the ribbon cables from the keyboard, but that has not solved the problem. The problem occurs even with Windows 10 in safe mode.

Has anyone experienced this kind of problem or have any suggestions? It's intermittent, so I'm hesitant to contact Lenovo Support because it may or may not show up when they are observing it.

[Puppy]

Do you have latest BIOS ? The BIOS quality of P series is abysmal in general causing a lot of basic functionality issues.

[DanielDK]

Yes. I'm currently running the latest BIOS, N1EET57W (version 1.30), and the problem remains. Good suggestion, though. Thanks.

[DanielDK]

My keyboard problem was resolved after I spoke to Lenovo Support and sent the computer in to the repair depot. The service report indicates that they replaced the system board.

[i2000s]

That's is unfortunate. Let us know if you still have similar problems after the board is replaced. I suspect this is more like a software problem.

[DanielDK]

The problem has not returned since Lenovo replaced the system board.

The keyboard issues occurred in both Windows and Linux, so perhaps it was a problem with the embedded controller or its firmware? I could only load the latest BIOS firmware (v1.30) and the previous one (v1.29*), both of which use embedded controller program (ECP) version 1.16. I am not sure if the firmware updater would reflash the embedded controller if the ECP version does not change. The problem was present with both firmware releases on the old system board.

(*) Note: After installing BIOS v1.29, the installer is no longer able to roll back to earlier versions.