Keyboard mute/volume freezing XP

[spanspace]

Weird stuff going on here. I am a tech by trade and this just has me baffled. Im looking for soem feedback on things I might be leaving out.


Problem: When hitting the mute button or using the volume dial on my keyboard Windows XP Professional locks up.

Things tried: New sound card drivers, new keyboard drivers, new keyboard with different volume controls and mute. All the drivers for the mainboard are up to date.

This just started happening one day and it has me absolutely baffled.

 

[Peddant]

This just started happening one day and it has me absolutely baffled.

I know this is an obvious thing to say,but are you totally certain you didn`t install/uninstall/update any software/hardware just before the problem started.Has the OS had any updates in the last few days ? If you get really desperate,don`t forget system restore.It works 40% of the time.

 

[lewekleonek]

What's the make and model of the keyboard?

What's the make and model of the keyboard?
Any drivers for it or you're using the original Microsoft drivers?
Is it connected throught PS/2 or USB port?
Wired or wireless?
The other keyboards tried... did they cause your PC to freeze as well?

 

[spanspace]

Logitech Elite USB
Saitek Esclise USB

Both keyboards tried USB first and locked up pc when using mute and volume controls. Tried both as ps2 with adapter as well. Nothing has been updated. It started happening randomly one day. My only guess is something is corrupt and I have no clue what. All drivers are redone and up to date since yesterday. I even went as far as to update the bios.

 

[spanspace]

Im going to try removing the keyboard extention tonight and see if I have a short in the cable somewhere. Outside of a reload of XP im not sure what to do.

 

[spanspace]

Keyboard extention isnt it. I ruled out the keyboard since the other keyboard did it as well. Is there anything that I can look at after a reboot to see if there was conflicts?


Update: Im come to the conclusion its the windows audio control. When I have it open it everything works great with the keyboard and the volume controls on the keyboard. If the windows volume controls is closed it freezes windows.

How do I reinstall the windows volume controls?

 

[lewekleonek]

I dont' think you can re-install windows audio control, but you can definitely re-install/update your sound card drivers, which I would do if I were you.

 

[rb4bs]

Ok well I have the same problem on a Dell Inspiron 6000 (on year old).
My hard disk was corrupt so I had to reformat it and reinstall windows and all the programs. This wasn't happening before but it is now... No problem when I have no other open windows and have the volume control windows open but otherwise the computer stops responding (though in a weird way: the programs are still running and updating information on the screen: i see downloads progressing, my firewall blocking stuff, songs continue playing in itunes, but they are not responding to the keyboard or mouse...)
Any ideas are appreciated, but something for some reason i'm thinking a recent windows update imcompatible with a driver... but then again... maybe not.
Any help appreciated.
EDIT: forgot to mention that this happened with the pause, play, stop, back, fowards in front of the laptop too.

 

[melkor]

Could be a trojan

I had the same problem and it ended up being because of this freaking trojan I found called smhost.exe (In the windows dir) The only way I could find to get rid of it was a program called regrun reanimator that I found at www.greatis.com. The software worked fine to remove the virus, but the site and the software itself were very poorley written. I'm assuming by non-english speaking people. Another kind of shady aspect to this whole thing was the fact that they were the only ones I found on google that had any information on smhost.exe and also the only ones who had any means of removing it. Kind of makes you wonder were it came from in the first place.

 

[mprime]

Key board volume control problems

I have the exact same problem and want to know if anyone else has manage to resolve this?

It's definitely a conflict with the sound card drivers since, when I uninstalled the audio drivers (Realtek high definition audio), everything works fine. Otherwise, using any of the shortcuts (volume controls or otherwise) on my Logitech keyboard (PS2 connection) causes my PC to more or less freeze. If I hit Ctrl+Alt+Del I can see the task monitor but can't click on anything (although the computer still works...i.e. plays music, downloads torrents, etc.). The only thing I can do is get back to the welcome screen and click "Shut Down Computer". I can actually switch users with no problems but when I return to the intial user, the problem persists.

I JUST reformatted by hard drive and didn't have this problem before I reformatted. All I did was reinstall Win XP Pro SP2 and download all the updates from the Microsoft site. I've tried 3 versions of the audio driver (including the one that came with the motherboard) but the problem still persists.

Could this be a conflict with one of the Microsoft fixes or updates? I doubt it's a virus since the problem started RIGHT after I reinstalled windows and all the updates. Please help!!!