keyboard on laptop does wrong characters! 6

[ringring7]

Hi, my client has a Dell Inspiration 3800, the keys have been doing the wrong characters, but only some e.g. presss "o" get "6".
If you use a start up disk, to get DOS, the keyboard works fine. Even tried swapping the keyboard. no help
External also fine. Any ideas please

 

[KLewisBPM]

Is "o" not "6" when number lock is on? Kind Regards

Kelley Lewis

 

[PEVDaddy]

This has happened to me on my Dell Latitude also. I get around it by plugging a laptop in the back. But if you are unable to do that, holding down the fn key and striking the letter will give you the correct results. I have not be able to find any other fix for this. So if someone has it I would much be interested in it also.

 

[Eguy]

Pressing Fn + NumLk toggles the keyboard between normal and the embedded numeric keypad.

Ed Please let me know if the suggestion(s) I provide are helpful to you.
Sometimes you're the windshield... Sometimes you're the bug.

 

[LOB]

I know NT use to do this but I never looked to see if W2K does but NT remembers the NumLock state. So if Numlock was on in NT when you logged off it would remember that state and its on at login. Since its not on during a DOS boot then I'd assume you have the Numlock toggled properly.
This is the NT4 fix and maybe its the same
SYMPTOMS
=======
Portable computers have the NUMLOCK key set to on when users try to log on to
the system. This can cause users to type passwords incorrectly, because users
often don't check the keyboard indicators before typing their passwords.

CAUSE
=====
By default NUMLOCK is set to on.

RESOLUTION
==========
You can modify this setting by editing the registry on the portable computer.
Normally, the computer applies the user settings when the user logs on, but it
uses the default user profile when it is first turned on, before the user has
logged on. To turn this functionality off, the default user settings must be
modified. The Keyboard entry contains user preferences as defined by choosing
the Keyboard icon in Control Panel. Entries are found under this registry path:

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Keyboard

InitialKeyboardIndicators REG_SZ Number
Default: 0

Specifies initial values for keys. 0 means that NUMLOCK is turned off after the
user logs on; 2 means NUMLOCK is turned on after the user logs on. This value is
set when logging off or during shutdown to preserve the state of the NUMLOCK key
at that time.

This value can also be changed on a user basis by modifying
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Keyboard and the same registry key.

 

[CharlieJax]

Turn off numlock in the bios. CJ
- If chickens could fly would they egg ugly people?

 

[CharlieJax]

Err... sorry, Turn off numlock at boot in the bios. CJ
- If chickens could fly would they egg ugly people?

 

[ringring7]

THANKS!!!! It was the num lock, amazing how the simple things can be so hard, I really appreciate everyones help

 

[rabtip]

My laptop starts with the shift key on annd i have to go control panel and select control panel accessibility option and then keyboard then I hit shift key and My keyboard works normal its starts evry time like this how can I switch it off

 

[bcastner]

rabtip,

This likely is a BIOS setting, and can be changed in the BIOS setup utility accessible at startup.

If not:

. Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT.EXE).
. Open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Keyboard (If the Keyboard key isn't there, add it.)
. Double-click the InitialKeyboardIndicators value on the right. (If it's not there, select New from the Edit menu, then String Value, and type InitialKeyboardIndicators for the name of the new value.)
. Change the value to any of the following:
0 - all indicators off
1 - Caps Lock on
2 - Num Lock on
4 - Scroll Lock on
Or, combine them by adding the corresponding values:
3 - Caps Lock and Num Lock on
5 - Caps Lock and Scroll Lock on
6 - Num Lock and Scroll Lock on
7 - Caps Lock, Num Lock, and Scroll Lock on
Close the Registry Editor when you're done; the change should take effect the next time you start Windows.

 

[sioxley]

Just a post script to this discussion. I have a Dell latitude C600 that does this all the time. It seems to be a design fault that when the screen is closed it press's on the num lock button. Sometimes it starts with num lock off sometimes on. The bios setting was the best solution.

 

[longlivegoku]

Wondered how the numlock constantly got turned on! Thanks sioxley. would have never though about that.