Control key locked down intermitenttly

A very vexing problem, that sets my hair crawling in frustration for about one hour cumulatively, every month. (The approx length of time I waste on it when it happens).

I have a Samsung series 9 ultrabook, i5, 4GB RAM with windows 7 home premium, all updates installed. About 6 months ago I noticed this problem- every few days, out of the blue, the keyboard started acting up:

basically it seemed like the control key is pressed down even though its not; a reboot always fixes it, but its highly annoying to have to reboot when in the middle of work with 20 open tabs in firefox and tons of unsaved documents.

How do I know that its the control key? I am only guessing, but what happens is that some keys (only some) act as if control is pressed, e.g. in notepad I try to type H and get the "replace" window.
Most keys still work fine; so its not purely a "control held down" problem. its only some keys that behave as if control is pressed, I think it is C, V and G. The other keys work. I know its not a hardware problem because:

1) A reboot fixes it instantly- until the next time
2) This problem happens whether on the built in keyboard or an external USB keyboard
3) this problem sometimes only happens in firefox/chrome's URL address bar; and in the windows START "search programs and files" bar; but sometimes it happens globally in windows.

I tried:
looking for apps responsible (and shutting them all down - doesn't work - its a WINDOWS problem, not an app problem)

* Updating bios, windows etc; running ccleaner, other system cleaners, scanners and optimizers, etc.
* Shaking the ultrabook senseless (luckily its SSD so it can take it)

I thought of a system restore but for some mysterious reason, I have no restores left (I used to have it running all the time but now it says it can only go back a few days at a time, which always fails when I try it - says "restore failed". Is it all a virus that is set to annoy me and blocks the system restore?)

The only thing that sometimes fixes it without rebooting is rapidly pressing all shift, alt control and windows keys madly for a few minutes. Sometimes it takes 10-15 minutes to get rid of the problem, because I refuse to reboot! I have too many things open and in progress, and I won't remember where I was in half of them if I reboot. (Hibernate resume doesn't fix it).

Any help dearly appreciated.

 

Any Ease of Access tools starting up on certain key presses?
I'd also suggest looking at apps loaded in the system tray.

 

Thanks, I checked it once... I think it once was the problem but it isn't now.

 

How about booting in fail safe mode?

Boot a Linux live image from a USB drive (or CD if you have an extrernal drive) and see how the keyboard behaves. If the issue is gone in Linux then you may have to do a clean install with a stock Windows 7 image.

If it still acts up even in Linux, it could be the keyboard or maybe the motherboard. I'm not convinced that it's not a hardware problem, because even if you connect an external keyboard, the internal is usually still active. Unfortunately I don't think you can disable the keyboard in the Device manager.
Edit: Perhapes Devcon would help you. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/311272

If that doesn't help, to find out if it's a faulty keyboard you have to remove the internal keyboard and only use the external one.

 

Much obliged... I'd rather simply do the free upcoming windows 10 upgrade than a full reinstall of windows 7. Samsung support got me to remove all keyboard drivers and then reboot. The difficulty with safe mode is, that I can't do prolonged work with it. And this issue starts only after many hours of work usually... I suspect some sort of malware that is really annoyingware.

 

How about keeping it in fail safe mode during the night while you're sleeping, and test it the day after?

It sounds unlikely that it's a malware that kicks in only after many hours, more like a HW fault. I've seen some weird hardware issues, including my friends wine damaged laptop that only starts if the room temperature is high enough.

Have you scanned with MBAM?

 

I will do a scan now. Thanks for the tip (even though I did all sorts of other scans..)

 

I just edited my comment about fail safe, in case you didn't see it.

 

[Reply re Ext keyboard: I tried that, when the problem starts, it occurs on both internal and external keyboards, identically]

 

Yes, and it can be the internal one acting up, that's why you should disable it with Devcon. Plugging in an external one isn't enough since the internal is active.
(As long as you can type on both at the same time, it also means that a possible HW issue in the internal one won't go away, no matter how many keyboards you plug in.)

Otherwise I suspect the Windows installation.

 

errr.... how do I use devcon to disable the built in keyboard? thanks

How would you do that with devcon? thanks

 

I've highlighted your problem.

The solution is, either get more freaking RAM, or manage your open programs more effectively!

Just sayin...

 

Hi, what would such a problem have to do with RAM? anyway I can't upgrade it, its soldered. Thanks...

 

I posted a link before. I've never used it tho. It seems pretty simple, you just have to find the device name in the device manager.

It's not the amount of RAM that's the issue here.

 

I can't get devcon to work LOL...

Devcon can't find the matching Hardware IDs I use. (Don't use the link I gave you, it's an outdated version.)

Anyway, you say that a reboot fixes it, so it might just be something wrong with the Windows installation.

 

Perhaps you didn't see my other highlighted quote in the OPs post:

"20 open tabs in firefox and tons of unsaved documents."

Anybody that has "20 opened tabs", and "tons of unsaved documents" in an I5, 4 GB RAM, system, is begging for a freeze, especially if the OP is inputting multiple keystrokes.

No disrespect to the OP, but efficient program management, is key to keep your system running at its highest potential, without these type of glitches.

Sure, it could be software related. But, this paragraph leads me to believe that the issue is more related to program management.

"Sometimes it takes 10-15 minutes to get rid of the problem, because I refuse to reboot! I have too many things open and in progress, and I won't remember where I was in half of them if I reboot."

Only my two cents, I could be wrong.

 

You're taking a quote out of it's context.

We're not talking about general sluggishness here. You can't get a computer snappier by pressing some keys.
He's got a defective Control key!

 

Well the cheapest easiest test would be to try not maxing out the system's capabilities and see if it reoccurs.
Overloads cause all kinds of strange behaviors with keystrokes and stuff not acting appropriately and system lockups.

 

Or, even better, shutting down programs when the issue occurs. I still doubt that it's a question of not having enough RAM though.
Besides, if you're right, it means that there's no good solution to the problem since the RAM is soldered.
Reinstalling Windows or removing/replacing the keyboard is at least doable.

My friends laptop had a stuck Ctrl key, although it was stuck permanently (not visible tho). I cut the traces inside the keyboard and it worked well again. Don't ask me how I figured out which Ctrl key it was, I can't remember...

 

So do I to be honest, running out of RAM will mean paging, but usually that doesn't result in that kind of issue. Heck, I've used my old Asus laptop with 4 GB RAM, a core 2 duo with >20 firefox tabs and other programs and I have not encountered this at all. If it was a RAM bound problem, I highly doubt it would show like this. If insanely heavy paging was involved, I could see keystrokes registering with some lag, but not in that manner.

the first thing that came to mind when I saw the original post was a hardware issue with the keyboard,s Ctrl key.

Unplugging the internal keyboard would also be a troublehsooting option, but that is kind of delicate.

 

Might give that ' On-Screen Keyboard' thingy a try; it'll flash post-haste on Ctrl, Alt or Shift activation.

Come to think of it ... Sticky Keys?