The buttons on the left side of my D7100 stopped working

Timmykouf

New member
The buttons on the left side of my D7100 stopped working while my friend took a photo of me. While I normally shoot manual, he was shooting in automatic with the on-camera flash firing. He took a few photos and then suddenly nothing. He claimed to have heard a snapping/popping sound when he pressed the shutter but the camera never took an image. It's been a month and the camera still behaves as it does in this video.

https://youtu.be/ow7YeruBx4Y

Problems:

-Buttons on the back left of the camera do not work! (menu, ?, Zooms, info, iso, etc)
-Two control dials do not work
-Playback, delete do not work
-Camera does not take photo when in automatic and flash is up
-OK Button and info Button do not work
-When left "on" battery drains in just a few hours.

What Does Work

-Live View works fine!
-AE-L/AF-L is set to back button focus and works fine (on the back side of camera)
-Mode Select Dial
-Release Mode Dial
-Taking an image and AF
-Recording a video

More Info:

-I bought the camera used off a pro who used it as a back up
-I have had it exactly one year (Oct. 22 2016-Oct 22 2017) when this happened.
-I use SanDisk Extreme Pro and never had an issue with them
-I have tried a reset with no luck
-I left the battery out for 2 weeks and popped it in with no luck
-SB-900 did not fire when attached to camera via hotshoe

I am a broke college student so paying to have it fixed isnt an option right now. I am however a Engineering student and want to take this on myself. Which leads me to my question, What is wrong with it and can i fix it?

I believe one of those buttons is stuck down internally; possibly the metering button, which is why when I turn on the camera the metering icon is the only icon the top LCD, and the camera wont let me "press down" more than one button at a time. I also think this is why the battery drains so quickly when left on. Typically the battery will last forever when left on but not in use.
But why would it take a picture every time other than when the flash is suppose to fire, similar to the set up of when this all first happened?

I haven't found any posts on the internet with a similar issue that was solved so any info could help!
 

lokatz

Senior Member
You may be right that a button is stuck; other than that, I can only think of an internal connector not giving proper contact. In either case, your only option if you don't want to pay for repair is to take it apart yourself, check and clean contacts, and hope that fixes it. This video shows you how to disassemble a D7100.

EDIT: To check one more thing, I verified on my D7100 that LV will still turn on and the shutter release will operate while the metering button is pressed, so that supports your theory.

Good luck!
 
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