I have a Dell Latitude CPx (J series) laptop and a section of my keyboard decides not to work at various times. (The Y, U, H, J, N, and M section.)
Most of the time I can restart it and it will work properly after that. Other times, it doesn't help. Also, though this is most likely bad for me to do, I can punch the keyboard and it will start working right again. Or for a softer approach, I can rub my fingers up and down the section of the keys until they show up on the screen (when I have a word program running to check).
Do any of you have any idea what is wrong and how I could go about fixing the problem? Your help would be much appreciated.

It sounds like keyboard is failing.

Two options replace keyboard, it normally springs out, then disconnect ribbon cable and put new one in.

Quicker solution is to plug in an external keyboard.

Alright. Thanks.