Type cover not working

[Kleimanr]

Surface Pro 2 type cover and touch pad not working, Backlight is working. Tried the hard (2 button) hard reset and still nothing. In addition the volume switch is not working as well which might have something to do with the hard reset.

 

[Al oha]

The type cover issue may be a failure of the contact points. You can try cleaning both the cover contacts and the tablet cover contacts. The bad news from my limited experience with covers is that the "hinging" / flexing of the cover especially backwards tends to break the tracks in the cover right at the contacts and is not repairable. IF you are handy with a multimeter, you can check the contacts doing a resistance measurement on the "pairs". I don't recall what they are but you can find them in a search on the net. Anyway, the "pairs" should all have some form of reading / resistance and not be totally open resistance (infinity). IF they measure ok, you can do a similar check back towards your tablet (with it powered off). Again, you should see some form of resistance and not an open (infinity).
Of course, if you have friend, with an equivalent / compatible device, you could try swapping to test things.

 

[Kleimanr]

Thank you for responding. I do have issues with one pin that shows open to all the other pins. I will try to locate another cover to try before buy another cover. Thanks again.

 

[Al oha]

Thank you for responding. I do have issues with one pin that shows open to all the other pins. I will try to locate another cover to try before buy another cover. Thanks again.

Which pin is it? A quick search reveals pins 1/6 are used for positive voltage, 2/5 are for grounds, and 3/4 are the data pair. If the keyboard lights, then it is likely the voltage pins are good. Your meter should shows some resistance value between 3/4... it should not be 0 and it shouldn't be infinite (open circuit).... as the data circuitry in the keyboard should be some finite components / circuitry. Hope that helps... I haven't measured mine but maybe will do a quick check to ensure that I am not mistaken. I have two touch ones that were bad but never really checked the type cover..

 

[Al oha]

Thank you for responding. I do have issues with one pin that shows open to all the other pins. I will try to locate another cover to try before buy another cover. Thanks again.

Which pin is it? A quick search reveals pins 1/6 are used for positive voltage, 2/5 are for grounds, and 3/4 are the data pair. If the keyboard lights, then it is likely the voltage pins are good. Your meter should shows some resistance value between 3/4... it should not be 0 and it shouldn't be infinite (open circuit).... as the data circuitry in the keyboard should be some finite components / circuitry. Hope that helps... I haven't measured mine but maybe will do a quick check to ensure that I am not mistaken. I have two touch ones that were bad but never really checked the type cover..

please disregard the previous pin out setup. Looked around a bit and remember another post on the net about the pinout on the keyboard. They are "interrupt", unused, SDA, SCL, ground, 5v. So perhaps your keyboard is OK, depending on which pin you were referring to as "open"... maybe it was the unused one. Based on the "new info", there should be some resistance between the data ones (ie. SDA, SCL), some value between the ground and 5v, and potentially some value between the interrupt and the ground pin. Sorry for the "mess" of information... its been a while since I poked at my key boards to find the problem.

 

[Al oha]

your post and my "less then accurate" responses made me pull out my broken keyboard and compare things to the working one. Both have lights come on when the surface powers on.... but only the working one allows me to input on it.
I did some quick resistance measurements. With the one probe on either end of the set of pins, all pins "conduct" with a measurement with exception of the 3rd pin in from the right looking at the keyboard.... BUT there is some sort of semiconductor / gate in the path therein because depending on which probe configuration I use (black / red probe combination), it changes the response on that pin and sometimes it is conducting. On the non-working cover, pins 3 and 4 never conduct to any of the other pins and hence it would appear that it can never send any data to the screen / tablet.
So based on your tests, it would appear that perhaps that one pin (if its 3/3) is your problem.