[cacique]

I got a Dell Mini 1018 from a friend which he bought in Saudi Arabia. It had a dual input, English/Arabic keyboard in it, which was missing two keys.

I thought that since I'd never have a need to use Arabic I'd just replace it with an English only Keyboard.

So, I bought one off of eBay from a seller in Hong Kong. It's a new keyboard and said to be genuine Dell. When I installed it, everything worked but the space bar key. I contacted the seller, told him the problem, and he offered to generously send me a replacement free of charge.

I got the replacement today and installed it, and all the keys work, including the space bar, except the problem now is that the number keys show the corresponding symbols instead of the numeric characters. ie. if I hit 5, I get % instead. Seems really strange that I've got two defective keyboards in a row.

The dual input (English/Arabic) keyboard doesn't have any of these problems, except that it is missing two keys. I can still type on the missing keys by pressing the little plastic buttons under where the keys would be.

So, my question, is there some kind of logic built in to the Dell Mini 1018 that prevents swapping a single language keyboard in a machine that was built for a dual language keyboard? Or am I just having bad luck with this seller and gotten two dud keyboards in a row?

I don't want to tell him I've gotten a second defective keyboard if it turns out that the mainboard, or BIOS, or something is programmed to only accept dual language ie. English / Arabic keyboards.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[holmes4]

There is a procedure one has to follow when changing the keyboard "language". On the Mini 9 there's a funky power-up procedure with pressing certain keys to change the keyboard map. I don't know what it is on the 1018, but I'd guess that the Dell service guide will tell you.

[cacique]

Thanks for the suggestion, Steve. I looked through the service manual and found info on how to change a keyboard, but not on changing keyboard languages.

I decided to take the keyboard out again and reinstall it. Maybe I didn't have ribbon cable inserted all the way, or it may have not have been inserted all the way at one edge. In any event, it seems to be working 100% now.

[desone01]

You could try reloading the Windows 7 operating system from scratch and this time specifying the US keyboard.

[holmes4]

I'm pretty sure you have to tell the BIOS what the keyboard type is. I don't know how to do this for the 1018.