[olpc-help] OLPC keyboard failure rates

Richard A. Smith richard at laptop.org
Tue Apr 22 22:27:26 EDT 2008


Recently some posts of mine have been taken and twisted a bit in various
blogs and slashdot in to indicate that the keyboard failures are
"widespread".

I would like to clarify what I see as incorrect info about the failure
rates of the OLPC keyboard.  Please re-post this info however you think
best.

OLPC does not have evidence that the keyboard failures are widespread 
like the blog posts I've seen indicate.

The overall RMA return rate of all XO problems is less than 1%.
Verified keyboard problems are a small part of that.

Correlating the RMA data to the actual failure rate of the keyboard is a
bit more difficult because many people with the problem have discovered
it outside of the 30 day RMA window.  Its also hard to get a good
estimate of how many unique users there are in the forums that reported
keyboard problems.

There has not been a rash of reports from our other deployments so we
believe that the problem was primarily in the early production runs.
The first shipment of G1G1 machines were part of the early manufacturing
runs.

The manufacturers of the keyboard have worked with OLPC to make some 
changes to the internal construction of the keyboard. We think these 
changes will help with the sticky keys issue.  These changes have been 
rolled into the current keyboard production.

If indeed the problem is much more widespread then OLPC needs more 
accurate data on the failure rate.  OLPC invites the community to help. 
   If you currently have an XO with a sticky key then please add your 
serial number to the following wiki page and what key(s) appear to be 
sticking.

Please don't add a lot of extra info.  A simple one line post entry will 
be fine. I don't need e-mail addresses or long problem descriptions.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Stuck_keys_SN

Thanks.

-- 
Richard Smith  <richard at laptop.org>
One Laptop Per Child




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