Weird Keyboard Issue

Hey my roommate and I both have HEL80 laptops and the other day his keyboard stopped working in games. The both the built in and wireless keyboard is completely unresponsive unless you hold down shift. If you hold the shift key down then all the functions work. Then today out of nowhere the same thing happened to my HEL80. Any thoughts? The keyboard works fine once we exit the game (mostly CSS)

 

Upon further testing in 3D pinball for windows xp, we found that the keystroke is being registered because the program plays the audio for the paddles when the key is pressed but they do no actually move unless once again, the shift key is held down as well. We've also tried reformatting but that did not fix the problem. I'm thinking it might be something on the network but no one else in the building has this problem... then again, they probably dont have compals either. lol

 

Try deleting the keyboard is the device manager and reinstalling it.

 

Check your accessibility options in Control Panel to make sure things like "Filter Keys" are not turned on. Check specifically under the "Keyboard" tab (you don't want anything checked) and under the "General" tab (you don't want any features checked most likely, but you ESPECIALLY don't want "Serial Keys" checked.

 

Thanks guys but that didn't work. Any other ideas?

 

Check if the KB has gotten disconnected from the main bus, is very unlikely this has happened but it could be as you play hard with the KB.

 

The Keyboard works fine everywhere else except in games, and even then It works if you hold shift, so I dont think its a d/c cable

 

Which is your OS?

 

Win XP Pro

 

i'm wondering if some settings or registry settings or whatever the hell i'm referring to but don't know what got stuck in some other settings from a certain game and you have to go back and undo/uninstall it.

 

I thought his OS was an linux based, sometimes you have problems with the peripherals drivers.

 

It may still be worth it to check the connector cables for the keyboard. I've noticed that my hand tends to sit heavier on the keyboard when I'm playing a game as opposed to typing, so it's possible you're applying just the right amount of pressure to cause a flaky connection, whereas holding shift provides a counterweight to keep the connection stable.

It's a long shot, but it sounds like you've tried just about everything, including reinstalling the OS, so long shots may be all we have left to go on.

 

I agree, that's why I insinuated that, but he says that it only happens when he plays, maybe the cable is on the edge of the connections, who knows.

 

Well I use an external Keyboard, but alright i'll check.. lol, If you guys come up with anything else let me know. THanks

 

Just a minute, you are saying that your external KB does that? Does the laptop KB do the samething?

 

Yeah they both do the same thing

 

Then it has nothing to do with the internal bus connector, it must be a driver issue, some registers seem to get changed as you play.

What happens when you stop the game, do they KB come to normal?

 

Yeah everything is fine in Windows and most apps. It seems it only affects games. I've tried many games and I have the same problem with them all. Once I exit, everything is fine again.

 

What is your BIOS?

 

He's got 118B I've got 122B

 

If you are running vista, I know that a recent update caused bugs with usb powered peripherals. Not sure if they patched that yet.

 

No I'm not running Vista, and its not a USB peripheral either so I dont think thats the issue

 

I think is the video driver. The KB is sending the right data but it is not getting to your display when you play, check your video card driver, try to update it.

 

I'll try that, thanks

 

No...your graphics card doesn't have a mind and "filters" out things from your screen. If he sees something on his screen, his video card and monitor are working. I personally think that it could be a virus or "something" that launches when games are launched.

 

But his KB works well with any other application, it just deactivate itself when playing games.

 

yeah i tried new driver but still have the same problem. What I dont get is why it works in games when I hold shift. I think it may be a virus.

 

It could be, try to use an antivirus then and let us know if oyu find any.

 

32 traces with Panda 2008 and.... problem solved. Thanks guys

 

So which virus was it?

 

I'm not sure Panda just said there were 32 and It got rid of them all.

 

Ok, sometimes it's good to know which virus was causing the issue, it could have been an spyware as well, which you can use spybot.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear that you are ok now.

All the credit goes to vashts121, thanks.