[Elecraft] Odd K3 Behavior

[Paul Lannuier]

My six year old K3 (#217) has been behaving oddly the past few weeks. The NB button sometimes doesn't work at all, either short press or press-and-hold, and sometimes when I press and hold it to bring up the LEVEL settings it behaves as though I'm pressing SPEED/MIC knob -- i.e., the display will toggle between CW speed and Mic level. Also, the left side of the BAND and MODE buttons sometimes do nothing when pressed; the right side of these same buttons continue to work. There may be other similar problems with other buttons, I can't remember. These are the two that I notice repeatedly since I change band, mode and NB settings often. Nothing out of the ordinary triggers this; one minute it works fine, the next it doesn't.

I can sometimes get the rig to behave normally by cycling the power, other times by pressing another button that does work. Other times nothing works, until it just starts acting normally by itself. I've reloaded the latest revision firmware as well as an older revision from 2010 that I had on my PC. I've also reloaded old and current configuration files. Goofiness persists.

Could something on the front panel PCB have gone awry on me? I have a KPA500 and a PC connected to the rig, if that is relevant. I've not tried to duplicate the trouble with everything disconnected yet. 

Any ideas?

73.
Paul WW2PT