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Regaining functionality of the CTRL keys on a Lenovo T410 laptop (02/2023)

Resetting a Brother printer (04/2023)

Regaining functionality of the CTRL keys on a Lenovo T410 laptop

This is probably a simple BIOS fix. It involves temporarily swapping the CTRL/Fn key mappings in the BIOS, restarting the machine, then swapping the mappings back again. The procedure is as follows:

1: Power on the laptop;

2: Press the blue ThinkVantage button;

3: Press F1 to enter the BIOS;

4: enter Config;

5: enter Keyboard;

6: set "Fn/CTRL key swap" to ENABLE (later, DISABLE);

7: press F10, saving changes;

8: restart, cycle through the BIOS process, then restart again;

9: repeat steps 2 to 7 to put the key mappings back to normal (resetting the option in Step 6 to DISABLE).

I'm not sure how this problem arose, but this BIOS procedure worked for me. The T410 model is at least ten years old now, although having these keys stop working in a way which is completely transparent to the operating system/s took a while to diagnose.

04/2023 UPDATE:

This happened again, and the BIOS trick didn't work. Or rather, swapping the CTRL/Fn keys worked, but swapping them back again didn't :/ ... It turned out that the CTRL key/s did work, but I needed to press them unduly hard. I fixed this by gingerly removing the left-hand CTRL key and cleaning all the dust out from underneath, before replacing it. I don't understand the inner workings of this procedure, but afterwards both CTRL keys regained their function with a normal level of user pressure.

It seems to be annoyingly temperamental, and in my case the CTRL keys start to work after about 10 minutes. This suggests it could be related to the operating system (in this case, Devuan Jessie), but I won't be able to check until I try another one. It doesn't rule out the possibility that the hardware is somehow denying the OS access to these keys in order to suggest the user needs to Buy A New Computer, but more research is needed. The following characteristics are apparent:

1> The CTRL keys sometimes don't work, and this is noticed on boot;

2> The problem affects both keys, xev shows no output;

3> The BIOS key swap works well, and the Fn key works reliably (at the loss of the actual Fn function);

4> The CTRL keys suddenly start working after about 10 mins of the computer being on.

Resetting a Brother printer to its (theoretical) factory settings

The .pdf for this procedure is here. The objective here is to try and regain some printing functionality, and in so doing it should be remembered that the resulting print quality will not be ideal. After a few years of heavy use, some models of Brother printers will trigger a software lock which disables most funtions of the printer unit. This is probably intended (partially, at least) to indicate to the user that normal printing quality will no longer be possible due to wear on components, etc. Whether it's designed to convince the user to purchase a new machine is neither here nor there; the fact of the matter is the printer will not print in the locked-out condition. There are a number of ways to get the machines working again, and if the printer doesn't work anyway there probably isn't much to lose in trying. It's possible that the printers will start to leak after a while as the overspill ink sponge will start to fill up. If you carry out the reset procedure, it might be an idea to either clean out the ink sponge or put the printer on a surface that won't be ruined by ink leaks. I've not personally experienced these leaks, but that doesn't mean they won't happen.

If Brother Industries are reading this, the lock-out timer is a really horrible idea which creates e-waste. 99% of consumers probably won't use the reset procedure, meaning 99% of your printers will be thrown away prematurely.



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