Keyboard strokes cause mad behaviour 2

[VintageWine]

A computer has developed really wierd behaviour. Whenever a key is pressed on the keyboard something odd happens, like a new window opening, as if some obscure function key had been pressed. The only key that works properly is the space bar. The only key I have found that will enter a character into notepad is the Del key.

It is not the keyboard itself, I have tried a replacement.
I have uninstalled the keyboard driver, re-booted and allowed the driver to reinstall on re-connecting the keyboard: no difference.

Anything that can be done on the computer with mouse alone appears to work correctly.

Any ideas?

 

[ettienne]

Is this a USB or PS2 keyboard?
If PS2 then I would suspect the PS2 port, if USB then you have a bit of a problem.

 

[chipk]

just for a test, I'd boot into recovery console or safe mode and see if you can type at the command prompt. that would probably give you a better indication as to whether it's a hardware or software issue.

 

[goombawaho]

Check for stuck keys first, but, as said, safe mode is a great idea to rule out a lot of things that could be "bugging" you (virus, etc).

 

[VintageWine]

Thanks ettienne and chipk,

The keyboard is USB. Other USB devices work (mouse and modem) and I have tried changing USB ports. There is no PS2 port.

I cannot boot into safe mode or bios maintenance. Tried booting whist pressing F8 (safe mode), F2 (Bios) and DEL (Bios). From this I suspect that the keyboard interpretation problem exists by the early stages of boot-up.

Computer is a Dell Dimension 5100.

 

[smah]

You seem to have narrowed it down to hardware, but you could also try booting to a linux live cd.

 

[VintageWine]

>You seem to have narrowed it down to hardware,
But the USB ports are working and the keyboard I am using to type this exhibits the same problem on that computer.

>but you could also try booting to a linux live cd.
Good idea - I'll try it

 

[CecilXavier]

Sounds like the windows key is stuck down to me.

 

[linney]

If you are able to login (are you?) and use the mouse to navigate, try clicking on OSK.exe in the Syste32 folder and see if the On-screen keyboard works. Normally you would start OSK via Windows Key + U, but not in your case I suspect.

Can you remotely connect to the machine and do some troubleshooting?

Have you checked the Keyboard settings in Control Panel, under both Keyboard, and also Regional Languages? Maybe the Input Language is wrong or an incorrect Keyboard listed?

 

[WardXmodem]

I find this kind of behavior a lot - and although you have found it to be hardware apparently I thought I'd expand on the "Stuck keys" idea.

I use some atypical things like VMware, and SYNERGY which is a wonderful program to move your mouse off the main screen an on to another visible montitor (in my case, the Snapstream Beyond Tv driven TV recorder TV across the room) but it gets confused such as on alt, etc.

So I tap each control, alt, and shift key once, and the caps lock twice, and this often helps.

OK, so that's maybe not new news for those that know the term "stuck keys", but what is interesting is I have an editor (Kedit) which is programmable and I wrote a program to show me the state of all the keys, and sometimes I find things like scroll lock down.

SUGGESTION: find a program that might show the state of all keys - an 8-bit string which MAY match something in XP but in Kedit it is:
Position
Set to 1 if:

1 INSERTMODE ON

2 CapsLock on

3 NumLock on

4 ScrollLock on

5 Either Alt key down

6 Either Ctrl key down

7 Left Shift key down (XP/2000/Vista);
Either Shift key down (Windows 98/Me)

8 Right Shift key down (XP/2000/Vista);
Either Shift key down (Windows 98/Me)

 

[VintageWine]

Thanks for all your posts, appreciate the effort.

I have a confession to make. My wife tried the replacement keyboard and reported "same problem", not myself. I tried it again today, and, errrm, that is the problem.

Stars for those who were barking up the right tree.