Erratic Keyboard Behaviour

[Al Skierkiewicz]

OK,
There is possibly a temp problem but the fact that it came back after several minutes of on time could indicate that or that the keyboard driver for XP is just loading last. While your computer is loading up, all kinds of things are taking place in their own sweet time. Since you have reloaded XP there is no chance to back up to a previous known good configuration. There is a possibility that the ACER keyboard driver has become corrupt. Once XP is open start a DOS session and see if the keyboard is working. Check every key. If that passes the test then the problem is with XP and you can check there site (on somebody elses computer) to get an idea or download the latest driver for your laptop.
Did you get any restore disks with the laptop? Did you use these to reload XP or a stand alone copy of XP?

[TubaMorg]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

OK,
There is possibly a temp problem but the fact that it came back after several minutes of on time could indicate that or that the keyboard driver for XP is just loading last. While your computer is loading up, all kinds of things are taking place in their own sweet time. Since you have reloaded XP there is no chance to back up to a previous known good configuration. There is a possibility that the ACER keyboard driver has become corrupt. Once XP is open start a DOS session and see if the keyboard is working. Check every key. If that passes the test then the problem is with XP and you can check there site (on somebody elses computer) to get an idea or download the latest driver for your laptop.
Did you get any restore disks with the laptop? Did you use these to reload XP or a stand alone copy of XP?

As an adendum to the above suggestions, reboot to SAFE mode and put it to boot to the DOS prompt so that none of the windows environment interferes with the test.

[Andrew Blair]

Thank heavens for safe mode. I had forgotten about it, and as soon as I got home, that's what I did. The keyboard worked fine in XP safe mode, so I knew it was a problem with the drivers. I unstalled them from safe mode, let them reinstall in regular windows, and I haven't had a problem through a re-boot. So good so far...

What I wonder is, why did re-installing the drivers through the regular environment fail, while uninstalling them in Safe mode worked? There must be some kind of log of settings it loads in regular windows, and theres a bad keyboard one somewhere.

Additionally, my hard-drive is partitioned, but the reinstall of XP did not wipe the second half. I wonder if something bad might still be on there? Thanks for the help!

[Al Skierkiewicz]

If you load garbage the first time it is there for eternity. I know there are some strange things that Windows does/has/doesn't do. One of the prices we pay for a high level operating system that is designed to work with a couple of million combinations of hardware and software.