USB Keyboard problems, WINDOWS XP

I am having the same problem... except this has happened with 2 keyboards on 2 computers.

Last year, I was using an old Compaq Presario 7000 that we had purchased in 1999. It had been re-fitted with Windows XP in 2004 and it was the computer I used up until Christmas of last year. Starnge things started to happen with it's keyboard though.

The computer itself was littered with spyware, and since I had never been able to flush it out with the free spyware programs it lingered until the very day it was replaced. But on to the matter at hand, the keyboard stopped working suddenly after startup. It worked fine in safe mode and worked on startup.. but once it got to the welcome screen it stopped functioning. Re-plugging it in didn't work as it would make the hardware fail sound, and not accept it. My old keyboard was a USB, and figuring the keyboard was faulty I threw it out and I was able to use the one that came with my Xmas Computer. (Mom let me get it. )

For a small time, it worked. But not long afterwards it started to fail too. And like the poster above, I did everything i could think to make it work, and finally I was able to do it. But it was an odd way to do it. I made a guest account and re-plugged in the keyboard and was able to get it working on the guest account.

Time passes and Christmas comes and I get to use my new computer! Using the keyboard that had come with it (The same I had been using with my old computer for a time) it worked perfectly until it too fell victim to this strange error. Can keyboards carry over malware? I sent some files over from my old computer, and it likely has something to do with it but spyware scans halt nothing. I am totally at loss and I really don't have the money to buy a new keyboard, let alone knowing that it too could succumb to this failure. Can someone please give insight?

I don't think that keyboards can carry over malware because they do not have anything to store data on....... unless there is some type of new keyboard i have never heard of that stores massive amounts of DATA.....


So...my suggestion is to try using keyboards with a ps/2 connection or get a connector that changes the usb to a PS/2. I have one that i use and mine works fine now

Hope this helps!!!!!!!!!!

* It doesn't. The fix to a USB keyboard not working is NOT to put a cheap adaptor on it and run it as a PS/2 keyboard.

Some computers like the mini Dell PC I'm looking at right now don't even have a PS/2 connector at all. Nope no mouse no keyboard hole to plug these things into. Only USB...

So here's a good dilema for you... if you get to the Login Screen and your USB Mouse and Keyboard don't work, how do you login and go about fixing it? PS/2 is not an option! Failure is not an option!

Have you looked in the BIOS to see if the USB keyboard feature has been disabled?

btw...your keyboard will not work in the BIOS, you have to use the F keys, up and down keys, + or - keys, and let's not forget the enter and esq keys.

Gosh I hope it's not that simple and I'm not that stupid. No it's not that, the keyboard works up until the Login Screen in Windows XP Media Center Edition. This is occurring after having to remove the hard drive because of Blue Screen of Deaths: 0x000024 and having to remove the hard drive from original PC and place it in another one in order to run "chkdsk /f" on the drive.

I would imagine that the USB drivers or such are now toast because of the hard drive corruption that was obvious from the results of the repair by chkdsk. I think NTFS stands for New Technology for Failing (File) System.

I guess I thought you'd tell me how to slipstream the USB into the running system. We have no floppy drive and no PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports. We're waiting on a copy of the Dell Recovery CD.... hopefully there will be a way to fix this from that.

P.S. The mouse and keyboard work in BIOS (Keyboard) and the Dell Recovery Partition programs (Keyboard and Mouse) as well as in other Operating Systems, e.g. Linux Live CD types.

i had the same problem i thought it was a usb port problem it turns out some keyboards dont like usb2.0 so disable usb 2.0 support option in bios mine worked fine after i did this

hope it helps

My work has a bunch of dell optiplex gx520s. they are micro computers and I have no place in my heart for them. Since we have got them, they have had random problems with the keyboard not working anymore. I work at a library, by the way, and I had to log in tot he check in program last night, but the keyboard would not function at all. I tried some keys, and found that the escape key opened the windows start menu, and the scroll lock worked as the escape key (weird). I did several things to get it to start working again such as restarting the computer, and changing the port to which the keyboard was plugged - neither of these had any effect. So I went into control panel and into the keyboard menu, and there was a dialog box that said to type to test the cursor speed. I tried typing in this box and it worked. Dumbfounded, I was. I figure that the problem was solved by going into this keyboard dialog box, I don't know how it would magically have fixed itself.

Yeh I had this problem ages ago & forgot how I got round it when it happened again. This time I scanned all progs loaded @ startup using "Quick Startup 2.0" & there it was "filter Keys" was turned on. It does have a sys tray icon where you can turn it off but it tends to hide.

Extract from F1

"To turn on FilterKeys
FilterKeys is a keyboard feature that instructs the keyboard to ignore brief or repeated keystrokes. Using FilterKeys, you can also slow the rate at which a key repeats when you hold it down.

Open Accessibility Options.
On the Keyboard tab, under FilterKeys, select the Use FilterKeys check box.
To turn off FilterKeys, clear the Use FilterKeys check box.

Notes
To open Accessibility Options, click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Accessibility Options.
If the Use shortcut check box in the Settings for FilterKeys dialog box is selected, you can turn FilterKeys on or off by holding down the right SHIFT key for 8 to 16 seconds (depending on the other settings you have selected in the Accessibility Options dialog box). To open the Settings for FilterKeys dialog box, open Accessibility Options and then, under FilterKeys, click Settings."

Hope this one is the dfinitive answer!!

This is of Intrest.
I have a similar problem, BUT only after I removed the ATI AGP video Card, and installed a nVidia 64MB AGP card - then allowed Windows XP to update. I now lose the keyboard after a log off , and attempt to either fast user switch OR log back in to the original profile.
A full restart restores keyboard ... until I log off again..
Removing nVidia drivers and the card and re-installing the ATI AGP , allows full keyboard functionality [ Note I also use a two port KVM ]
Regards;
PV