Keyboard has Stopped Working: Urgent please help

[flipflop]

Hi,
Disaster has struck me. Last nite my keyboard suddenly stopped working. I own a fujitsu siemens amilo pro v2000 running MS XP Pro with service pack 2. When this happened i restarted my laptop but when it came to entering my bios password I cannot type in my password. I did not have a look in device management before I restarted so did not check the status of the keyboard..but I cannot boot in safe mode or get into bios setup..as it does not detect me entering F2 or F8 etc...

Over the last few days Ive constantly had the message "WebScanX has encountered a problem and needs to shut down ..do you want to send an error report". I just havent had time to find out what this was about, but from one or two forums i visited there was a hint that a virus could have been disabling webscanX. That is the only background of problems i've had with this laptop.

I use hibernate mode quite a lot and have it running 12+ hours a day. Im studying for my finals and have my latest version of my thesis on this machine... Can anyone help me at all...I would be eternily grateful

Regards,

Brendan

 

[Nodsu]

If the keyboard doesn't work in BIOS then it has nothing to do with any kind of software or virus.
Do the keyboard LEDs respond to caps lock and/or num lock?
Did you pour some liquid into your keyboard?

It could be a bad contact. Open up your laptop and unplug-remove-clean-reinstall the keyboard. Keyboard removal is a standard procedure for laptops and you can easily do it with the help of some repair manual and a screwdriver.

 

[flipflop]

thanks for the reply. Your right it couldnt be a virus problem if i cannot even enter bios settings, should have thought of that. No, caps lock does cause its LED to light up (only one lite up is just to say laptop is 'On'). I definitley didnt spill any liquid on the keyboard but I agree with you that it may be a bad connection or something. Here is the strange thing do...about 20 minutes after I posted this thread using my pc (I had left my laptop running awating entry of bios password) I tapped a key and it 'worked'. I logged in ok and saw checked the status of the keyboard, which said it was working properly. I went into the system and application logs (after right clicking my computer -> manage -> system tools ->event viewer) and there was a lot (i mean a lot!) of warnings and error. The error and warning sources came mainly from : 'W32Time' 'Service control manager' 'dhcp' 'dnsapi' 'netlogon' (???)

About opening up the laptop, I'll see if a friend can help me on that...but i'll check my warranty won't warn against it! When you say manual, do you think there would be a manual specific to manufacturers (i.e. do you think i may find one on the web relating to fujitsu siemens laptops...?). The good news is i got my project and college stuff back safely enough :giddy:

 

[SNGX1275]

Anytime something on your computer makes you nervous, you should immediately get a backup copy of the vital files you have, starting with most important first.

Ideally you should always have important data in 2 or more (physical) places at once, but I understand that that is inconvienient to always do.

 

[IronDuke]

...
Ideally you should always have important data in 2 or more (physical) places at once, but I understand that that is inconvienient to always do.

Nothing compared to trying to recover it. Not to mention the cost if you need a specialist to do it.

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Something to try if it happens again: a USB-keyboard.

 

[flipflop]

Yea couldnt agree with you more, have done a million backups of thesis to my pc and usb key but as I said the 'latest' version I hadnt done yet so i consider myself lucky. Its happened again last night, and its strange now that the 3 times its happened i was on the same website (vodafone.ie) just sending a webtext, i know it must be coincedence but it is strange non the less. Just in the middle of typing it just stops recognising any keystokes. Again after a restart and waiting a while it came back to life. Presuming this is a bad contact can someone give me the steps i should take to resolving this, my best hope is to sort this out myself...going on previous experiences of customer services I know I would be waiting weeks/months to get someone from where i bought it to sort it out...!

 

[Tedster]

might be a good idea to have a plug in keyboard for a spare.
they're easier to type on also

 

[johannvr]

I have a similar hardware issue. My brand new Amilo Pro V2040 worked fine (for a couple of weeks) then some keyboard buttons stopped working...After a few restarts everything worked again.

At first, I also suspected the OS and Drivers (installed by vendor) and re-installed everything. The problem persisted and now on almost all restarts some keys don't work. I have found that the keyboard tends to "sort itself out" after resume from suspend.

My Amilo Pro just turned 4 months old. I plan to take it for repairs, but haven't had an opportunity for last two months (too busy)...after which I'll sell it or give it away.

I'll definitely be adding to Fujitsu-Siemens' customer churn ratio