Wayne, I'm marking your post as the "suggested answer" because I think that is the answer - we need to give up and move on. I have also wasted too many hours on the phone with their robotic customer support. Although Brian is trying to provide us with an answer unfortunately it is not the right answer. They will not give us a new, updated tablet (which I believe seems to be the REAL solution according to the few people that said they received a new one and no longer have issues), but instead they always only send us a new keyboard or replace the motherboard, which does nothing. The issue lies somewhere in the tablet design of the first revision of the Dell Venue 11 Pro when it first came out. They have a newer "model" (they probably considered it a running change) of the Dell Venue 11 Pro now, which means they found the issue and fixed it, but all of us poor unfortunate buyers of the first version are stuck with Dell's initial mistakes on this product.

Brian

Thank you for your support on this forum, but I cannot afford to wait 9 months for a resolution to a problem as others have. My issue is over a year old and still not corrected, frankly I gave up which I think Dell was hoping I would do.

There is very obviously a serious issue with these tablets and keyboards and I would have expected there to be a re-call at least by now.  Personally I have been through 3 keyboards and I reckon have lost at least a full working day with support, both Dell and Kelway who we source through.

I've had enough of my Exec and Senior management thinking that I am incompetent because Dell have an issue that cannot be rectified, so from my point of view, it's time to look for an alternate product.

Cheers

Wayne

Yeah, nope.

After updating the firmware and sending this machine away for warrant repair THREE F%#$ING TIMES to no avail, I fixed the problem myself.

The issue is due to the electrical connection between the keyboard and the tablet being interrupted. The mechanical connection (the latch) that holds the two together is a little loose, which means the pins and contacts move relative to each other when you close the lid or move the unit around. If the contacts on the bottom of the tablet are not flush with the bottom, the pins on the keyboard can loose contact with them when there's movement. Due to POOOOOR design, the tablet does not switch to its internal battery when the pins don't disconnect in the right order, so it loses power. I've tried this with the bottom cover of the keyboard removed: with the keyboard connected to the tablet, I unplugged the keyboard's battery, and the tablet loses power. It doesn't switch to its internal battery in this situation. it relies on the keyboard's connector pins being different lengths: the outer ones are shorter so they disconnect first, which signals the tablet to switch to its own battery.

So using a hammer and a small screwdriver, I fixed my tablet by pushing the contacts down so that they are flush with the bottom of the tablet. You have to open it up (i.e. remove back panel, unscrew all the screws, and remove the back frame panel thing) so that you can get at the top side of the contacts. Then, very carefully, tap on the upper/inner/top side of the pins and push them down until they are flush, or slightly sticking out from the bottom of the tablet. It took some very careful, delicate work using a hammer and precision screwdriver, but I did it, and IT HASN'T SHUT DOWN ONCE in the last two months. Prior to my fix, it was shutting down almost every time I closed it.

In one hour, I did what Dell was unable to do in about SEVEN MONTHS of dealing with their inept technical support.

Dell's only redemption is that they sent me a replacement tablet, which I requested three months ago and received only a week ago. But it absolutely does not make up for the hours I spent on the phone, and how useless my tablet was.