Windows ACPIEC warning 3; keyboard, mouse, quickLaunch buttons dead.

So I went to recover my HP Compaq nw8440 from standby, and it was a bit slow in getting to the login screen. When it did, I noticed that the keyboard and the mouse would not work at all. Even the mute button wouldn't work. I had to hold the power button down to force the machine to shut down.

After I booted back up, I looked into the Windows event viewer and saw tons of "acpiec" warnings with event ID 3, which were logged earlier when my keyboard and mouse were dead. The description reads:

Also, a few weeks ago, I went to recover my laptop from standby, and it was VERY slow. After I logged in, the screen briefly switched to an ultra-low resolution mode, then back. Upon checking the ATi Catalyst Control center, there was an external monitor and an external TV "attached but disabled", even though there was nothing plugged into my laptop at that time

I've also noticed that occasionally, when I boot up my laptop, the screen won't come on at all (no BIOS screen), but everything SEEMS to work fine otherwise (judging by HD activity).

Microsoft says that I should update the BIOS; could a corrupt BIOS be the case? Or is the Embedded Controller (EC) going bad? I just had the motherboard replaced a few months ago due to a supposedly bad DMA controller (I'm still convinced it was just the optical drive connector), and none of the above issues occurred before it was replaced.

Thanks,
Teraforce