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    puzzling keyboard problem on Tecra 8000

    Discussion in 'Toshiba' started by Liam_, Jun 22, 2007.

  1. Liam_

    Liam_ Newbie

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    Hi there!

    This is my first post on this forum, so forgive me if I'm posting in the wrong place :eek:

    My problem is that my 7-year-old Toshiba Tecra 8000 (400MHz P2, 256mb RAM, 12GB HD, DVD-ROM drive, etc), model number PAT80AC-4K73, has an abolsutely puzzling keyboard issue.

    Basically, a lot of the keys don't register properly. Here are a few examples:

    -the "a" key produces "wa"
    -the "s", "k", and z" keys all produce "ksz"
    -the "8" key produces "82q"
    -the spacebar key usually (?) doesn't work
    -the backspace key is extremely buggy

    This is just a sample of the oddities. Not all keys are problematic, but enough of them are to make it useless for typing.

    So, you're thinking, ah, you must've spilt something on the keyboard. Nope. In fact, if I plug in an external keyboard, the results are exactly the same. Ok, so we've ruled out the keyboard being the culprit. The next possibility: operating system? Nope, not that, either. :confused: It's the same thing in Windows, DOS, or Knoppix.

    So, we've ruled out the keyboard and software as the culprit. What does that leave? Non-keyboard hardware.

    Perhaps I should backtrack and explain how this problem came to be. One day, I was chatting on msn when out of the blue (it seemed), the "a" key was producing some odd string of letters. So I restarted the laptop. It turned off fine, but then when I restarted it, I instantly got a BIOS-type message of "Ready for BIOS Update. Press any key to continue". I tried many times, and I just could not get it to go past this screen. :confused:

    Ok, so I got up and left the computer for a couple hours. When I came back, it booted to Windows no problem, but now I had this terrible keyboard problem.

    What could this be? A corrupted BIOS? I have no idea. I tried to update the BIOS with the update available on Toshiba's site, but it requires a floppy drive to update, something my model does not have! :eek: And Toshiba does not offer a bootable CD ISO for this model!

    So that's where am know, and I have no idea what to try next. I'm looking for ANY suggestions/ideas you guys might have. The laptop is so old it's not worth paying to get repaired, so you guys are my last line of support :p

    Thanks in advance! :D
     
    Liam_, Jun 22, 2007
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  2. Padmé

    Padmé NBR Super Pink Princess

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    Have you run any anti-virus or anti-spyware scans? Try that first. Also you could try a system restore to a time before you started having the problem.
     
    Padmé, Jun 22, 2007
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