[monkeyxiv]

looks like it would be a solid investment if your laptop is bluetooth enabled like mine is. then once you get your laptop back you can use they keyboard with the laptop.
as for the mute and the grey lines it sounds software which software issues most of the time isn't covered under warranty. well im not sure about the mute issue do you mean like a mute button on they keyboard or the screen? if its on the screen then its software.
the gray lines sounds like a vista issue... for some reason vista and laptops dont mix when it comes to hibernation and sleep. i have mine set to sleep when i close the lid and hibernate when i hit the power button once. its a brand new dell xps m1730 with vista ultimate.... when i close the lid it does fine with sleep i open the lid my touch senstive keys light up and about 5 seconda after the screen flickers then comes on. when i put it in hibernate mode and pull it out thats the pain in the ass >_< i dont get the gray lines but it does all kinds of fcked up sht and takes forever to come out. like to pull out you hit the power button and it should pop out of hibernation in 30 seconds mine will do things like the power button light will flicker then just stop flickering and do nothing for upwards of 3 minutes then i hit button again still nothing. but when put windows 7 on it and setup hibernate and sleep is almost instant coming out of which makes it mean its software not hardware. so thats one thing you might want to look into it partitioning your drive for windows 7 and see if you get the same results with it,