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Widespread Keyboard Failures on OLPC's XO-1
otakuj462 writes "Many participants in OLPC's 'Give 1 Get 1' program of last November are now encountering what has come to be known as the 'stuck key' problem, in which one or more of the keys on their XO-1 laptop's built-in keyboard become stuck in an activated position, or are activated when adjacent keys are pressed. As of January 30th, the official word from OLPC is that the root cause of this problem is unknown because '[t]here are several manufacturers of the keyboards.' ('So far we don't know of any _reliable_ method of fixing the keyboard or the exact root cause.') It is unknown just how widespread this problem currently is, as the 30-day manufacturer's warranty has already expired for most G1G1 participants. However, the OLPC forums are full of reports. OLPC is currently deploying the XO-1 to children in Mongolia and Peru, as well as other developing nations. If OLPC is actively deploying units with known, critical hardware bugs, without a dedicated support infrastructure in place, to children who have never seen a computer before, should they still be considered to be a responsible organization? Did OLPC deploy their hardware too soon?"
Amazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzing!
$100 doesnt buy much these days...there is a reason that laptops dont sell for under $450...they cost money
I don't think that it is so much a problem with not testing the hardware enough as it is a problem with how OLPC designed the laptops. These are computers that are being used widely by children all over the world, and, regardless of how you look at it, kids have a tendency to break things. Now, it is obvious that the XO-1 is designed to be a sturdy piece of equipment, but I find it downright silly that the keyboard is non-replaceable. The keyboard, of all things, should be easy to swap out for a new one--it is after all the primary input device on the computer, and if you lose that, you lose the computer. OLPC should have thought ahead to possible broken parts and made everything--from the touchpad to the keyboard to the LCD to the hard drive--removable and replaceable.
They can rip the key out and use a key remapping tool to get some other key used in its place.
The real problem is it only has a 30 day warranty. That`s worse than game consoles.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Dodgy keyboard. Less space than an Eeepc. Lame
M kybr wrk fn
No it's not normal. Almost everything here comes with at least a one year warranty. A lot of computers and computer parts come with a three year warranty.
They are not required by law to have a three year warranty here or even a one year but I have never seen a new computer have under a one year warranty.
Gone!
The idea of the laptop is to make schools and children responsible for and in control of their own technology, rather than being passively spoon fed technology.
Therefore the idea is that people fix things themselves. This is a good thing if things are built with this in mind. Repair your own thinkpad (no problem), repair your own ipod (no chance).
If we have any hope of saving the planet from being one giant landfill dump, then we really need to learn to fix electronic devices ourselves.
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Not quite sure what is meant by "we don't know of any _reliable_ method", unless perhaps it means something that works for everyone the same way 100% of the time, and there's some small number of units that can't be fixed by disassembly and wiping the area under the affected key with isopropyl alcohol. I didn't even go that far with mine, I just pried up the edge of the keyboard mat near my stuck alt key just enough to get the q-tip in.
The XO is designed to be like the old Volkswagen Beetle -- cheap and easily fixable by non-experts in the field. Yes, it would have been nice if they weren't prone to stuck key syndrome, but it's not the end of the world, and these are fricken amazing devices at twice the price.
Loose lips lose spit.
Let's be realistic. First off, there is no information to show how common the problem is: 1 in 100, 1 in 1000, 1 in 10,000? Also, note that it appears that everyone on the forums complaining about this is someone in a developed country who bought one via give-one-get-one. The blog at olpcnews.com linked to in the slashdot summary seems to be saying that there needs to be a system for distributing spare parts. Well, actually that wouldn't do any good with the stuck key problem, because the OLPC folks don't have enough information yet to know which keyboard supplier or suppliers are causing the problem. They could ship spare keyboards to Mongolia, but there's no way to know yet whether the replacements would have the same problem. OLPC does have a plan for dealing with hardware breakage. The plan is that they're trying to get the defect rate very low, and then have people in the communities receiving the laptops take care of the small number of defects by cannibalizing machines. That seems like a very reasonable plan for a village in Mongolia where 100 kids have 100 laptops. No, it's not a very reasonable plan for an affluent adult in the U.S. who isn't part of a community that has received a pile of these laptops -- but, uh, sorry, that isn't the main mission of OLPC. Some of the buyers in developed countries seem upset that the warranty period is only 30 days, and that they have to pay for shipping. Yeah, sure, OLPC could extend the warranty to a year, and pay for shipping, but that would cost money, and they'd have to pass on those costs, driving up the cost of the laptops. The goal right now is to continue decreasing the cost of the laptops.
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Amazingly, there IS a support mechanism in place for the target countries. There isn't one for the people who received laptops in return for a charitable donation. Support for the G1G1 program is volunteer-based. Sorry we're not as quick to fix everything as the billion-dollar companies you morons keep comparing us to. The manpower we have is being devoted to target countries, so forgive us if we seem to be neglecting the rich white demographic who has time to harass us on Slashdot. Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.
They are not required by law to have a three year warranty here or even a one year but I have never seen a new computer have under a one year warranty.
Actually in Europe consumer goods are required to last for a reasonable length of time. Two years is the minimum period mentioned in the consumer sales directive but member states are free to institute their own (longer) periods and higher consumer standards.
Perhaps this is the reason why the OLPC wasn't sold in Europe ...
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
(Replying to my own posting ...)
Actually in Europe consumer goods are required to last for a reasonable length of time. Two years is the minimum period mentioned in the consumer sales directive but member states are free to institute their own (longer) periods and higher consumer standards.
In the UK, the period is six years, under the Sale of Goods Act 1979
Rich.
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
The whole point of having the sealed membrane keyboard design is that it's a lot harder for dirt to get into it. The whole top of the keyboard is a rubber membrane with no openings, so there's nowhere for dirt to get in. Also, unlike other membrane keypad designs, the membrane itself does not provide one of the contacts for the key. It merely applies pressure to the underlying plastic layers that actually have the contacts. The top plastic layer also has very few openings. It would be very difficult to get enough dirt into the keyboard through normal use (even in dirty conditions) to cause the keys to stick.
Mine developed a sticky control key after a few months. Opening up the laptop (compared to most laptops, it's easy to get into) and peeling back the top rubber membrane (it's lightly glued down to the plastic layers), rubbing the affected area to make sure the contacts were not sticking together, and reassembling the laptop seems to solve the issue; I haven't seen the control key stick since.
It is.
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO_Giving/Europe
The OLPC is not a consumer product. They don't have the infrastructure to sell it as such. If you buy millions, they can sell support, including hardware, and warranties.
They are not iXO's. Their goal is not to sell laptops for everybody. They are making this for kids who might use them to learn. Both objectives don't have to be acheived together, and don't even need to be compatible.
At least they are trying to make the world a better place! Results don't matter!
:)
Now, let's all drop our pants and have a circle jerk to the Powa of Da Collective! w00t!</sarcasm>
Of course, right now, some poor little kid in the middle of some hellhole is cursing his America POS computer.
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Stop pointless speculation in the summary. This isn't CNN or Fox news. Just give us a summary of what the topic is about, give relevant links, and allow us to form opinions. Thank you.
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Some of the buyers in developed countries seem upset that the warranty period is only 30 days, and that they have to pay for shipping.
Some people are simply delusional. When I participated in G1G1 I assumed there was no warranty. My guess is the 30 day warranty is only there because of some stupid law. The way I see it, I made a donation to the OLPC Foundation, and got a neat little example of the technology I was funding. If mine had experienced any problems I would never have dreamed of draining OLPC's resources by returning it for replacement. I would have attempted a repair and reported on the success or failure of my repair, so that the knowledge could be disseminated to the children using the laptops.
I haven't experienced any problems, and I really wish commercial companies would adopt a technology like its screen or its ability to take falls and keep on ticking, and especially the power-saving technologies which makes this thing the only laptop that has never run out of juice one me; I carry around three heavy batteries with my regular laptop and run it in its maximal power saving mode and it still doesn't hold a candle to the OLPC.
The keyboard doesn't have the best feel, and I would only want commercial companies to copy it when making a keyboard for children. It is spill-proof. When I've spilled hot coffee and cold soda on it, I just had to wipe it off. Again, this is unlike my Sony Vaio and Lenovo T-61 keyboards which I've had to replace when even take-it-apart-deep-cleaning did not restore functionality post spill.
From what I've read, it appears the stuck key problem is fixable with a cleaning. Taking apart an OLPC is _much_easier_ than taking apart a commercial laptop, so I think this whole complaint is completely overblown. I'm not going to go so far as to say the article poster is an Intel sock puppet. I've seen they crazies who talk about having "bought" an OLPC right here on slashdot. Since the OLPC has never been on sale to individuals, you know these people are delusional right off the bat. The apparently large number of these folks either speaks to the success of the G1G1 program at reaching many many people, or it speaks to the sorry state of the war on drugs at it's goal of combating the crack epidemic. Either way, these idiots should be ignored, and I hope the folks at OLPC do not take these jokers seriously.
My only disappointment with the G1G1 program is that it wasn't G2G1, Give 2 Get 1. That could have resulted in more laptops in the hands of children, and fewer laptops in the hands of these complainers.
I don't understand how you are looking at it.
When Negroponte talked about a 100 dollar laptop, everybody was laughing at him, saying it could not be done.
They are selling under 200 dollar laptops, with a good chance of making them for 100 dollars in one year or two, or at least for the equivalent to that amount, taking into account currency devaluation.
Other people are selling cheap, good laptops now, and a new market has emerged. Their vision, that was far fetched, is now very close. I think the OLPC is already a success.
Their first computer model has some very interesting features, from an engineering standpoint, and is unsurpassed in many areas, as of now. Even if it has some technical issues (that the kids in Uruguay have not experienced, for example), it is still a great piece of technology.
Regular mainstream laptops fail all the time. Four team mates and I bought top of the line HP laptops an year ago, for work (we are software consultants). Mine has a non fatal backlight failure, that I couldn't fix it within its warranty period, because I was not willing to leave it for a month, the time they said it would take (I had to move to another country in less than a month).
Another one had its disk fail in warranty, and they are taking more than two months to fix it, and still haven't come up with a solution.
Yet another one, failed on monday, after the warranty period failed.
Some other guys bought Toshiba laptops, and half of them had memory modules failure, rebooting due to overheating.
Some other guys had Lenovo Laptops, and four out of six of them had failing power strips, or failing batteries, before three months.
None of them were refurbished, and all were paid full price.
I'm not saying that this is typical, it was just my first and only experience working with laptops, and it is obvious to me now that they are not that reliable. At least, if you use them seriously, and do not have a support contract.
If people put up with this kind of issues with big brand laptops, I don't see why a keyboard failure is such a big issue on a laptop that is not intended for unsupported use. The difficulty in getting your hands on one, and the 30 day warranty should be a good enough warning.
Perhaps in consumerist societies, but I bet they take more care of stuff when they know it can't/won't be replaced.
In "non-consumerist" societies, kids are equally rambunctious and can easily drop or knock things over.
Long before I was a "consumerist" to use your venom-dripping terminology, I was breaking stuff. Haven't you ever heard a parent complain that kinds understand the value of nothing?
If a kid has no real concept of value anyway, what on earth would motivate him to be more careful than with anything else they are used to playing with?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, the real problem is that you seem to be considering it a consumer product. It isn't. OLPC set the thirty-day warranty to give G1G1 recipients a chance to make sure the computer works. It's basically a DOA-prevention warranty. I paid in for G1G1, and I got my laptop, and then I got excited about the project and volunteered to help.
The XO-1 is not a consumer product. It is an educational tool, and the children who receive them aren't worried about comparing its warranty to that of an xbox they've never heard of.
Okay, there were some problems. NOTE THE DATE: As of January 30th. Nothing has been posted since March in there. I think it's safe to say the situation may have changed since january, seriously thats almost 4 months ago.
Really why is this even a post today that far back?
I was the first one to report the bug here:
http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/5658
Although the cause is still unknown, I do believe that the way I was holding mine could have accelerated the issue in my case:
I held it in my left hand with the lower left corner of the base in my palm - My fingers being under the base and my thumb being over the base in the left corner. I would then type and scroll with my right hand, so the entire weight of the laptop was being held at the point where my thumb was pressing on the lower corner - The laptop would essentially flex down and to the right.
The problem presented within 4 days of receiving the laptop.
Since I have received my replacement, I have not held the laptop in same fashion - not even once - and will not.
And luckily, so far so good - I've not experienced any problems with it.
-- start rant ---
I was also the first person to send mine back based on the bug, *BUT* I wasn't the first to be mailed a replacement.
If you read the threads on the bug you'll one of the tech guys next-day-aired some other dude a laptop after his was returned for testing - I was a little bummed!
All of the official messaging from OLPC says that a replacement cant take as long as 30 days. I waited for 30 days and then called support.
They informed me that it would be several more weeks before they shipped my replacement.
Actually, I received it less than 48 hours after getting off the phone with them.
By the way, the support staff are incredibly nice!
-- end rant --
Cube On! (http://stores.ebay.com/PuzzleProz)
I'm not sure what the letter of the law is in the UK, but the state-of-play is that warranties on laptops last for a single year, and the retailer normally offers a 30 day return policy. Only hardware faults are covered: software fault, accidental damage, theft, acts of war and god are all excluded. The only exception to this is if you are able to prove that you are mis-sold. If you don't produce a receipt (other other proof of sale) then there is no obligation for anyone to do anything.
In short, if the keyboard issue is a software error (and, seeing as there are apparently many manufacturers of this single keyboard, and they are all failing, this seems likely), the buyer would be on their own in the UK also, assuming their minimum rights (ie; they did not buy any extra insurance).
No donation for you!
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
This is not a charity.
Uruguayan kids have their laptops without _any_ help from the G1G1 program. We have the money to buy them, and to pay for support. We just don't have the infrastructure or influence to build them that cheap, or to even embark on our own on a project like this. That is the help we needed, and it's appreciated.
The G1G1 program is nice, esp. for testing. But it's just another part, even if you yell that it's a CRITICAL part. Real kids have tested them in proyecto CEIBAL, in Cardal, Uruguay. We can live without the G1G1 program, don't worry.
Since I have basic shop skills and know how to solder I did just that, spending about $35 for the keyboard and about 4 hours making the modifications. I couldn't be happier with this modification. The action of real keys doubles the usability of the XO, especially for people like me who have big, clumsy hands. I used to dread having to enter enter text on the old keyboard. The new mini keyboard is a joy to use and I can type in my normal style and rate. Highly recommended if you are up to the task.
I'm personally quite disappointed in both the OLPC manufacturers as well as the response by some of the G1G1 donors. The faulty XO-1 keyboard may be the downfall of the whole project and all we in the US can do is whine, and hope a factory in China can fix the problem.
I fully disassembled my original XO keyboard and found the sticky key problem is clearly a design flaw in the way the two membranes are held apart. The bottom membrane has a serpentine array of traces which are exposed to contacts attached to the upper membrane and are arranged in small groups under each key. The top membrane has small circular contacts, with clusters of 2 -17 contacts under each key Separating the membranes, and holding the contacts apart from the traces below, is a pattern of rubbery glue, printed into linear traces between key rows and small diamond shaped dots internal to the rectangular groupings of contacts above. Most keys have an array of 4 contact dots with a 2mm, diamond shaped spot of glue directly between all 4 contacts. However the Ctrl, both Hand and Alt keys as well as the ] key have 6 contact dots with only 2 super tiny dots of glue to hold the membranes apart. Apparently these keys are the ones which stick the most often. For these keys, the designer placed the center pair of contacts in the group of 6, directly over a trace below with little separating glue. The only possible repair would be to separate the membranes and place additional dots of glue over the traces on the sticky keys. OLPC need to come clean about this mistake and build a better, more robust keyboard and make them available to all XO-1 owners.
(PS. This message was entered on my hacked XO, under Opera)
Bigoted and ill-spirited posts such as this one are no credit to the other OLPC support volunteers. Please don't assume you speak for anyone but yourself. Those donating to OLPC contribute greatly to its mission, with their enthusiasm and their sharing of the projects ideals as much as with their donations; aside from which they deserve the same respect and consideration you would give to anyone.
I don't know your reasons for posting anonymously, but it seems to me this is rarely appropriate and never obvious. You should be proud to take responsibility for your statements, however controversial. Posting openly, as a long-time OLPC supporter and current staff member, I see the honest and considered feedback from the Slashdot community as important to the refinement and amplification of the project's mission.
SJ on en:
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"