Keyboard works in DOS, but not in Windows

I have a USB keyboard, and a USB mouse. When I started my PC today neither of them would work. They're both getting power (the mouse illuminates, as does the caps lock key).

In DOS, the keyboard works fine.

I tried booting in safe mode, but still the mouse and keyboard won't work once windows starts.

Can someone help me out? I not sure what to do.

Thanks in advance.

 

Make sure USB support is enabled in the Bios.

 

Thanks for the reply. I don't see anything in the BIOS about "USB support." But I'll look again.

In windows, other USB devices work, like flash drives.

It's frusterating because just a few days ago the mouse and keyboard were working fine. Then I decided to install my NVIDIA drivers that came with my MOBO. I didn't notice any performance gain, so I uninstalled them. Then after reboot my mouse and keyboard would no longer work.

I've tried different keyboards and mouses, but still the same problem. I've run out of ideas. Looks like I may have to reinstall windows just to fix a stupid little problem like this.

AMD Athlon 4600 X2
ASUS M2N-SLI 570 MOBO
2 Gigs Cosair DDR2 800
2 Western Digital 250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives
ASUS 7300LE PCI Express x16 Video Card

 

My mouse and keyboard worked before I installed the drivers.

Furthermore, it would be impossible to install the drivers without a functioning mouse or keyboard.

 

This may sound like Pete and Repeat, but do you really think your computer works better since uninstalling your motherboard chipset drivers? And, to help those who would like to help you - just how did you go about uninstalling those NVidia drivers?

Third question - what type of interface or connector did these alternative mice and keyboards have? USB? PS2?

What happens if you tap the F8 key while still able to use the keyboard (as you describe "while in DOS ") and boot into Safe mode?

Assuming you can get into safe mode, remove (via the control panel) both your mouse and your keyboard.

Please report back.

 

Thanks for the reply.

As I said before, I didn't notice any performance gain. I could've been wrong though.

Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs

I have alot of Mice and Keyboards laying around. I tried both interfaces.

I tried booting in safe mode already. Once the user select screen comes up, the keyboard and mouse are rendered useless.

Well it will boot up in safe mode, but the keyboard and mouse still won't work, so they above isn't an option.

 

May be a foolish question .
Do you have a PS2 port ?
If you do try a PS2 keyboard or use on of the adapters that you find with Logitech mice to convert the usb to a PS2.
If you can do that try uninstalling the keyboard drivers - or you can probably do that in windows with the mouse.
Reboot .
Perhaps the reinstall on the reboot will help.

 

Unfortunately, I have no system restore points.

I just built this computer, and I had system restore turned off.

 

As I stated before, I've tried using the PS2 port, but it has no effect on my problem.

I can't install/uninstall anything from windows because niether the mouse or keyboard work.

I've tried multiple keyboards and mice with both USB and PS2 ports. Nothing has worked.

 

This is a new build. If I found I could not get a keyboard and mouse to work in Safe Mode I would check the BIOS settings (the settings should all be listed in the motherboard manual) or consider that the OS install was a bad one. I might consider a repair/reinstall, but problems may surface in the future again so I think I would just reformat.

If you need to install Windows again, install all the major drivers (chipset, graphics, audio, network, etc) before installing minor drivers or software.

Matt

 

Now that it has come to light this is a new build, I'm in total agreement re: reformat. I'd even delete and rebuild the partition. johnjm22 has said a USB mouse and keyboard did work at one time so its doubtful that there is a BIOS setting that needs to be reset to enable USB legacy devices or more specifically, mouse and/or keyboard. It does surprise me that System Restore would be disabled on a new build because by default, it is set as enabled. Regardless, wipe the drive, reformat and do a clean installation - anything less is a poor use of everyone's time.

 

Hi Rock,

From the way its written, its ambiguous - I'd bet the poster turned it off.

I'll refrain from my usual homily on System Restore

Regards - Charles

 

And Good Morning to you Charles [SIZE= "1"](as Mattman sleeps quietly)[/SIZE]

My thinking exactly. What it doesn't say (reading between the lines again) is why and that begs the question of what else was going on that we haven't been appraised of.

 

Yes, I turned it off.

Please don't.

http://www.musicxp.net/tuning_tips.php

This is basically a list of all the tweaks I have done to my system.

 

"Tweaks ", only do them one at a time and see how your system responds. Undo the tweak if there is any adversary effect (the last tweak you did would probably be the culprit).

The tweak link you posted may give you a very "fast" system, it may not look real "hot" though

Anyway, I think the consensus is reformat and start again. This time look for areas of possible improvement (if you need them). If you want a barebones system that will run applications well rather than "look good ", test those tweaks one at a time.

Matt

 

That's what confusing. After I did all the tweaks, everything worked fine.

This PC is for professional audio, I don't care about looks.

I guess that's my only choice. It just makes me mad I have to do complete reformat over such a small problem.

 

Hello johnjm,

You might as well give repair of the installation a shot, you won't lose as much, all your user should remain intact: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

SR can be controlled as to the amount of disk room it takes:

Right click My Computer > Properties > SR tab > move the slider to a lower % point.

Regards - Charles

 

Something that should do what you want is Control Panel -> System -> Advanced tab -> Performance, Settings -> Adjust for best performance. This takes it to a rudimentary Win 2000 appearance and turns off most of the frilly extras.

Check all your drivers are up to date, especially the chipset drivers.

If you are doing editing, the CPU and RAM are important, but probably the most important thing is HDDs. You want to read from one HDD and write to another. I am looking at building a video editing machine for someone and I am considering having one drive system for Windows, one for reading data and another for writing. The editing program also suggests using RAID 0

Look at the system requirements of the main programs you are going to use. If you have those well covered (recommended, not minimum) all those tweaks will only add slightly to the performance (and as you have seen, may be detrimental ). Freeing up RAM and CPU cycles will not help if the system needs to read and store data.

Matt