Very Odd Problem with my Inspiron...

I've lately encountered the most odd problem with my Dell Inspiron 8200. My mouse no longer works on its own. it is completely unresponsive unless I hold down a key on the keyboard while I use the mouse. terribly odd, no? And also, just after my mouse problem, my keyboard started to get funky. My keyboard will switch to 'function' mode randomly. every letter I press then opens some sort of menu. Sometimes this happens when I haven't been at the computer for a while, and sometimes it happens when I am in the midst of typing... I then have to press the 'function' key to turn off the function mode... I'm finding this very hard to explain, but i hope some of you understand what i am trying to say.

Anyway, just wondering if anyone has encountered this sort of problem before. any help is greatly appreciated . Thank You.

 

Do a thorough virus, trojan, and spy/malware scan. It sounds like you have a bit of garbage affecting your computer.

 

I performed a thorough spyware and virus scan on the computer, and it seems like the keyboard problem is fixed for now, but the touch pad for the mouse still doesn't work. Ive been using a seperate mouse now for a while though, which works fine. the touch pad only works when I press and hold a keyboard key down. any other ideas?