Keyboard does not start on lid open on Dell G7 laptop, works after a restart

Question

This problem occured after a failed Windows update installation.

Keyboard does not startup when I open the Dell G7 7500 laptop lid (normal start method) or when I have shut down leaving lid open then press power button to start. I had previously installed Win 11 vers 25H2 successfully and deleted the keyboard drivers letting them re-install on startup.

The keyboard does startup when I do a lid or power button start, and then by doing a restart using the on-screen power icon. Something is preventing the keyboard starting except during a restart following a state when the keyboard has not started. I checked the BIOS settings but didn't find anything for keyboard.

Is there a different startup script for restart ? Or is there a script for the lid/button startup that is not used during a restart (from a state of OS running)?

Terry

Answer 1

Hi,

You can try these steps in order: first, reinstall the Dell chipset and power management drivers from Dell’s support page since these control how your keyboard powers on; next, update your BIOS and embedded controller firmware, which often fixes device startup issues; then disable Fast Startup in Power Options to force a full hardware initialization each time you power on; if that doesn’t help, do a clean boot (start Windows with only Microsoft services running) to see if another program is interfering; and finally, check Event Viewer > System logs for any driver load errors at startup. The reason these steps help is that restart and cold boot use slightly different initialization paths, so ensuring clean firmware, drivers, and power settings makes the keyboard load correctly no matter how you start the laptop.

Kind regards,

Answer 2

Hi,

Thanks for the detailed update, A few things you might try while looking into this:

Update or reinstall the Starlink network adapter drivers, make sure Windows isn’t loading anything in a conflicting mode on cold boot.

Disable "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" in Device Manager > Network adapters > Starlink WiFi adapter > Power Management tab.

Test with a standard router if possible, just to see if the issue is truly network-related.

Once you chase down the network side, we can see if that clears the cold-start keyboard issue.

kind regards,

Answer 3

The Dell G7 keyboard not loading on cold start has been resolved by using this command in PowerShell (as admin):

powercfg / hibernate off

Terry