I have a large amount of laptop keyboards in my Spares and Repairs 'pile' that were taken from laptops beyond repair - but how do I know if they work without having to connect them to the correct laptop to test them? With a Laptop Keyboard Tester of course!!
So How Does It Work?
All you have to do is connect up your keyboard, plug the tester in to a USB port (for power only) and then press all the keys - an audible beep will be sounded on each successful key press.
The LED display will show the number of successful different key presses - it just shows a number, it does not show you what key or letter has been pressed.
With a whole host of different connectors there's bound to be the one I need (I hope)..
Q: So what do you do if the ribbon cable of your keyboard is a different size to all of the connectors on the keyboard tester?
A: Shove it in anyway!
When you press a key on a laptop keyboard you are basically shorting out two connectors (exactly like a switch) and all this tester is doing is looking for a short on any of the wires no matter where it is plugged in! Therefore if there isn't a connector that is the exact size that you need, carefully plug it in to the next size up.
Press the button in the top-right to turn it on and then start pressing the keys on the keyboard and listen out for the beep.
The number on the LED display (as shown above) will increase on each different key press so if you know how many keys you have on a particular keyboard and you have multiple ones to test, you can then quickly press all the keys and as long as the number of key presses matches the first one you tested then that's a good indication that it's OK.