Thank goodness for this posting board! I've had my 2650 for about 6 years now, and despite Dell's trash reputation - she has carried me through nicely so far. Well, much like the rest of you, my keyboard stopped working suddenly and unexpectedly after nearly these 6 years. I figured it might have been the years of crumbs and abuse, so I unplugged inspected and finally just ordered a new keyboard from ebay for 30 bucks. It arrived and was sadly disappointed when it did not function.

So after reading this thread... I pulled everything apart again, fired up my air compressor and let her guts have a a hurricane's worth of wind. I saw dust and crumbs fly out of the fan ports. Long story short, after a good air blasting, a few good bangs, a twisting centrifical force spinning air launch (carefully caught), and a restart - she miraculously started working again. The new keyboard is just a bonus at this point I think.

Say what you want about Dell, but over the years I've added the extra 256mb ram chip, a DVD dual layer burner, and an aircard for wifi. I'm keeping mine until she croaks - well worth my original 1300 bucks.

Thanks again!

oddly enough, my keyboard just bit the dust again and I was looking for this thread! Thanks for finding it for me... now let's see what I did last time.

well, I've beat the crap out of it and get absolultely nothing. Have to admit that over the years it's been a good little computer but this is a very irritating habit it has. Luckily I keep the USB keyboard nearby.