Computer Glitch

[capodo]

Being this is my first post in here, please forgive me if I'm not in the right place.

I have a Toshiba Portege 4010 that I bought used from Krex Computers about 7 months ago. Everything was fine - until about a month ago.

Now, all of a sudden, I have a glitch in my system. The onboard keyboard doesn't work at all. Most of the time I use an external one anyway - but even this is having problems. Off an on while I'm trying to type a menu will pop up on the screen and I haven't touched the mouse (I also use an external mouse though the onboard one usually works ok).

An IT friend told me to run HouseCall by Trend Micro and that seemed to fix the problem - but only for a day. I've got MacAfee installed, Ad-Aware, and other PC cleanup utilities. None of them help. He then gave me a new hard drive to try and said it could be a hard drive issue. I haven't tried this yet. I admit to being a bit scared to try that.

I'm loathe to spend $75 to take it somewhere when it may be something I can fix myself. I have built a desktop system in the past so I'm somewhat understanding of hardware. But I admit laptops are a new forray for me.

Any info is appreciated!

[jbennet]

menu will pop up on the screen and I haven't touched the

Please describe this menu. Also, are you familiar with the tool HijackThis?

[capodo]

jbennet, thanks for replying.

Perhaps "pop up" is the wrong thing to say. More accurate would be that a dropdown box will come up on my screen and I haven't touched my mouse at all.

For example, say I'm working in Excel. All of a sudden the dropdown under FILE will come up. And again, I've not touched the mouse at all. And this happens over and over and over. Sometimes it's every couple of minutes - other times it's right in a row. And I hit the esc key each time to get rid of the box.

It doesn't matter what program I'm in either - Explorer, Excel, playing a game - you name it.

I've not heard of HijackThis. I will take a look though.

Thanks again!

[jbennet]

Trend Micro have a free tool called HiJackThis. Do as i say:

Download HJT

rename it to something else (as some crafty viruses are able to disable known removal tools)

Run a scan and check the option to save a log. Post the log here.

Do not select to "fix" anything until I have checked your log or you might end up removing things you need and break your system.