Keys seem to act "stuck" [Problem went away]

Hello! I would like some help

My problem is that certain keys act like they are stuck: 1/!, Tab, Q. The function keys won't work at all. 1, Tab and Q sometimes act like they're stuck after you press them, but Tab sometimes does it by itself. Fn won't make any numbers, but it does things like Home and End, Volume up/down, and Brightness up/down.

This basically started about an hour ago. I went downstairs to check my mail and came back later, the screen-saver had gone off and the screen was on sleep like normal, but when I woke up the computer, this problem started.

I reset the computer twice, once automatically and once manually. The computer beeped continuously while resetting, from the blank screen onwards, I assume because the Tab key acted like it was being held down. As far as I know, no liquid could've fallen in the keyboard, and it looks about clean; (I don't want to risk taking keys off unnecessarily because it seems dangerous).

Does anyone have any idea what's going on? I will attempt to provide more details later. Please help! and thank you very much in advanced!

Edit: *Title.*

 

Re: Keys seem to act "stuck"

I'd say your keyboard has developed a defect. If you have warranty claim it now. Otherwise you can find them cheap enough on eBay and they're quite easy to swap out.

The keyboard on my D250 lost the space bar at about 3 weeks old, couldn't stand long wait times for warranty so bought a replacement on eBay for $14AUD (included postage) and swapped it in about five minutes.

 

Re: Keys seem to act "stuck"

Switching the keys? That seems like a good idea, but right now, I'm not sure if there's a problem with the physical keys themselves or if it's some kind of electrical or software problem

I'm not sure what kind of information I should include with this. I'm pretty sure that it's not a system problem since it starts before Windows starts to load.

But here is my system information:

Edit: For a while, Caps Lock stopped working too, but now all the keys seem to work with exception of the Tab key. Strange.

 

Re: Keys seem to act "stuck"

if you want to see if it's a software / hardware issue, try booting the machine up without the keyboard attached. Simple enough to pop it out (use a credit card or something, there's loads of info on the forums here for removing it) and detach the ribbon cable. Set it aside somewhere. If you need to use the computer while the original keyboard is disconnected, just plug in a USB keyboard temporarily.

You will more than likely find it actually is your keyboard though. You mentioned that you were getting beeps durring POST. This means that there is indeed something wrong with the keyboard itself that is telling the computer that a key is being held down. Durring POST the only software running is the BIOS doing Power On Self Tests. In days gone by, older computers would have stalled durring post if this was the case, nowadays they only beep and continue.

 

Re: Keys seem to act "stuck"

The repeated beeping at a black screen suggests a bad electrical connection - happened to mine after a liquid spill - after cleaning it beeped then finally rebooted and has worked ever after. Each key has a contact point and the keyboard has a ribbon cable connector, either of which can act up. I bought some electrical contact spray and was able to get enough penetration without removing the keyboard.

It's certainly worth your while to remove your keyboard and try cleaning / reconnecting it before buying something, since installing new hardware will require that anyway. Thankfully haven't had to do it, myself, but this might help:

http://www.dalekeller.net/Other/Compute ... sembly.pdf

 

Re: Keys seem to act "stuck"

Added that link to the Wiki forone, thanks.

 

Re: Keys seem to act "stuck"

As suddenly as it appeared, the problem went away in about 6 hours. And now my keyboard works like before

To Swarvey: I found this HOW TO REMOVE AND REPLACE keyboard on LAPTOP/NOTEBOOK from the description that you gave me. Thank you very much for all your help! I will remember that if I run across this problem again in the future.

To Forone: Thank you for your help as well! I had thought of this, but then I figured that a spray may not be stron enough to reach under the keys, but I will remember that if I need it again.