Unresponsive Keyboard

This past weekend my keyboard and mouse (both PS/2) stopped working, for no apparent reason. I tried restarting, disconnecting and reconnecting both but it didn't fix the problem. I plugged the mouse into a USB port and it started working again so I went and got a USB keyboard, shut down the PC, connected it, booted the PC but the keyboard still didn't work. I can press F2 and get into the BIOS and the keyboard works fine here but as soon as I exit the BIOS and continue the boot process the keyboard doesn't work anymore. I have tried booting from my Windows XP CD but when it says "Press any key to boot from CD ", the keyboard no longer works and I can't boot from the CD. I'm stuck at the login screen because I can't enter a password to do anything. Has anyone else ever experienced this problem? If so, were you able to fix it and how?
Thanks for any help.

 

Your BIOS probably has a place for turning on "Legacy USB" so that your keyboard will work before it boots into Windows.

Or try another USB receptical.

 

Hi Bill,

Thanks for the reply.
The only USB option in my BIOS is 'USB Emulation' in the Integrated Devices section and I have this set to On. It was previously set to Off but turning this option on made no difference. The keyboard just won't work once I get past the BIOS.

Glenn

 

How about try the keyboard in the mouse USB slot and the mouse in the keyboard slot. You know, switch them.

If that doesn't work, go into device manager and down to the bottom is the USB controllers. Un install all of them and reboot. Windows will rebuild them. This has worked for me before. Do you have SP2 installed?

 

I'll try switching USB ports but I don't have much hope that it'll help.
I have SP2 installed and Windows updates are current.
I can't get into device manager because I can't login. There is no keyboard access to allow me to type my password so I'm stuck at the login screen. The keyboard becomes unresponsive very early in the boot process, right after the BIOS load.

 

Sorry, my head isn't on yet. The only thing I can think of is to borrow ps2 keyboard or try your old one in another computer. It is strange that you can get to the BIOS but can't do the "any key" for the windows CD. It sounds like a windows repair is in order.

I don't use a logon myself but is it possible to get to safe mode (F8)? Does that require a password?

 

My options are really limited. I can't do a Repair because I can't boot from my Windows CD. I can't boot into Safe mode because the keyboard is already unresponsive at that point. I think I'm going to have to put the hard drive into another PC, as a secondary drive, format it, and then reinstall Windows.
I really don't want to do this but I don't think I have any other options.
Thanks for your suggestions Bill.

Glenn

 

Hi,
If there is any chance of getting to your run box and type in osk (on-screen keyboard) maybe that will help until all this is figured out...If that's not possible, then hit your tab key and windows key (left side of keyboard and see if that will bring up your start menu...If you're lucky and it does, then use the arrow keys to navigate...Then try finding your way from start, to programs, accessories and accesibility...On the short menu that will come up, arrow down to On-Screen Keyboard and hit the enter button...

In the mean time your post will be disected to figure out the fix for the original problem...

 

Hi,
Me again...I read your post more thorughly after I passed along a suggestion that I realized won't work because you can't log-on...I apologize...One thing I did take notice too is, you stated you can not get into safe mode because of the keyboard issue...If you have your keyboard connected to a USB port, that will explain why it does not work in safe mode...Not sure if you tried with it hooked up normally but if not can you make that attempt and post back.

 

I'll reconnect my PS/2 keyboard and try booting into safe mode when I get home from work tonight, then post the result.
Thanks for the suggestion.

 

I don't think putting the drive in another computer and installing windows will get you far either. All the hardware will be different and you'd still have to do a repair of windows when you put it back in the problem computer.

This seems to me to be more of a hardware issue or possibly a bios issue some type rather than something to do with windows. If you can't even use the keyboard to boot from your windows cd I would think this would have to be the case. At that level of the boot process windows hasn't begun to load yet and would have no effect on the keyboard. It would still be the bios handling it.

Do you have a floppy drive? If so, just to see what happens, try booting from a win98 bootdisk and see if the keyboard is responsive there.

Another thing you could do is go into your bios setup and see if there's a setting there that says halt on all errors. If so, enable it, reboot. If there is a hardware problem, the boot process will probably stop and possibly you'll get an error message of some type. If so, it would be a possible clue as to what's happening.

It's really odd that you can get into the bios but you're not able to use the keyboard to boot from a cd. If all else fails in the end, you might possibly consider flashing the bios. You'd have nothing to lose. I'd save that for a last resort though.

 

Some very good suggestions here Zander, thank you. I'll try them all and see if I can make any progress on this problem. I'll keep you posted.

Glenn

 

Whoopee, I have a working PC again. I reconnected my PS/2 keyboard and booted from a Windows 98 setup floppy. When I got to the DOS prompt I tried typing 'dir' and the keyboard responded with 'dr5'. Many of the keys returned the wrong keystroke so I put in the floppy with the BIOS upgrade that I had downloaded and rebooted to install the BIOS upgrade. The upgrade program told me I already had the current BIOS but I let it apply the upgrade anyway, just in case I had some corruption in the BIOS. After the upgrade and reboot I was able to type in the password field but when I pressed a key it was returning 3 keystrokes. The keyboard was behaving weird but at least it was working. I took the keyboard from another PC and connected it and after booting with the other keyboard attached, it worked! So, it would appear that I had a defective keyboard as part of my problem. I still don't know what caused the original problem, where my mouse and keyboard both stopped working completely and that concerns me a bit because it could happen again. But, at least it's working again and I'm happy. Thank you to everyone for your help and suggestions and may I waish a very Merry Christmas to all.

Glenn