Few things throw off your day like a laptop keyboard not working when you have an email half written. Sometimes it is every key, sometimes it is just three or four, and sometimes the keys type something completely different from what you pressed. I am Chris, I run Circuit Care here in Miami-Dade, and dead keyboards come across my bench every week. The good news is that a decent chunk of them get fixed at home for free. Here is what to try before you pay anyone, in the order I would try it.
Start with a real restart
Not closing the lid. A full shutdown, a minute of waiting, then power back on. Keyboard drivers and background apps can hang in ways that make the keyboard look broken when nothing is physically wrong. A restart clears all of that, and it fixes more keyboards than people expect. If your keyboard works fine for a while after rebooting and then dies again, that points to software, which is worth knowing before you assume the worst.
Make sure the keyboard is not just locked
This one saves people a trip to my shop all the time. Laptops have a few settings that can silently disable or change how keys behave.
Check for an Fn lock first. Many laptops have a lock icon printed on the Esc key or one of the F keys. Pressing Fn plus that key toggles the top row between media controls and regular function keys, and on some models it can affect other keys too.
Then check Windows accessibility settings. Go to Settings, then Accessibility, then Keyboard. If Filter Keys is on, Windows ignores short keypresses, which feels exactly like a half dead keyboard. Sticky Keys can also make modifier keys act strange. Turn both off and test again.
And if it is just the number pad that stopped, press Num Lock. It gets bumped constantly.
Clean out what is living under your keys
Every keyboard I open in Miami has a story under it. Crumbs, pet hair, and a surprising amount of beach sand. Grit under a key blocks the contact underneath, so the key clicks but nothing types.
Power the laptop off, hold it at an angle, and use short bursts of compressed air between the keys. Work across the whole keyboard, not just the dead keys, since debris moves around. Do not pry keycaps off with a screwdriver unless you have looked up how your specific model’s caps attach, because laptop key clips are tiny and easy to snap.
Figure out if it is software or hardware
This is the test I run first at the shop, and you can do it at home in two minutes. Plug in any USB keyboard, or connect a Bluetooth one.
If the external keyboard types perfectly, your Windows install and drivers are fine, and the built-in keyboard or its connection is the problem. That is hardware territory.
If the external keyboard has the same problem, the built-in keyboard is probably fine and something in Windows is interfering. That is usually fixable without any parts.
While you sort it out, you can get by with the on-screen keyboard. Press the Windows key plus Ctrl plus O to open it.
Reinstall the keyboard driver
If the test above pointed to software, this is the next move. Right click the Start button and open Device Manager. Expand the Keyboards section, right click your keyboard, and choose Uninstall device. It sounds scary but it is safe. Restart the laptop and Windows automatically reinstalls a clean driver on boot. While you are at it, run Windows Update, since a buggy update sometimes causes keyboard issues and a follow-up patch fixes them.
If you spilled something on it, stop here
Spills are their own emergency and the rules are different. Power off right now, unplug the charger, and do not keep typing to see if it still works, because a powered board corrodes fast. Cafecito, soda, and juice are worse than water since the sugar keeps eating at the contacts even after it dries. I wrote a full guide on the first steps after a spill, and the short version is that speed matters more than anything. The sooner it gets opened up and properly dried, the better the chance the keyboard, and the laptop under it, survives.
When it is time to bring it in
If you have restarted, checked the lock settings, cleaned it, tested an external keyboard, and reinstalled the driver, and keys are still dead, the keyboard itself or the ribbon cable connecting it to the motherboard is the likely cause. Heat and humidity here in South Florida do not help either, since laptops that live in warm rooms or travel in hot cars see connectors and membranes wear out sooner.
That is a repair, not a reason to replace the whole laptop. On many models a keyboard swap is a quick job. On others the keyboard is built into the top case and takes more labor, so the honest answer depends on what you have. At Circuit Care the diagnostic is $40 and credited toward the repair, I will tell you the exact price before any work starts, and if the math does not favor fixing your specific machine, I will say so.
Call or text (786) 479-7690, or book online through the contact page. Most keyboard issues get diagnosed the same day, and you will know exactly what you are dealing with before any repair money changes hands.