urgent help appreciated - laptop playing up

ih8stress

Thanks browntoad. Yes, it is Vista (got 3mins left)

ih8stress

Thanks Browntoad. "Will try and get the download if at all poss

closed

Sounds like a keyboard problem, rather than virus or software. reseat the keyboard connector inside or use an external keyboard before going down the reinstall windows route (even if you could, not going to get very far without a keyboard).

Sometimes applying pressure on the keyboard does the trick, otherwise you will have to remove it and look underneath.

Has it had any spillages?

ih8stress

Quick update:

Managed to connect a wireless mouse to it. Did a full scan with malwarebytes (was unable to do it in safe mode as the mouse took a few seconds to switch on during start up and subsequently pressing F8 was too late to respond and I didn't want to lose the mouse whilst it was working).
The scan didn't find any viruses.

I DID perform a quick scan in safe mode .... networking option later on though, just in case this made a difference. Again, it didn't find any viruses.

I managed to rotate the screen image back to normal by googling screen sideways. The answer came from tomshardware - press ctrl + alt + up arrow.

The keyboard seems to work okay but the touchpad does not respond, so I am having to use the external mouse.

AFAIK the keyboard has not had any spills, though it occasionally gets 'bits' in the grooves and a couple of keys have stuck in the past.
About a week ago I cleaned the touchpad with a slightly damp cloth and it froze for a while. I posted it here http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2214799&highlight=

Can anyone advise how I check out the touchpad on the laptop, please

JUNIOR

Are the touchpad drivers loaded/updated ? right click my computer/manage/device manager/pointing device & mouse any yellow exclamation marks

I had this same issue touchpad not working ,i had to power down then i had to remove my laptop battery, keep my finger on the power button for 10secs to drain the power , rebooted and there it was again.:j

strange i know , but it might work !:o

culpepper

you could check for the drivers being present in the control panel section.
I'm not on windows at the moment but I think it is in control panel,system ,hardware and on my windows machine the touch-pad is called something like synaptic pointing device or something similar.

ih8stress

Hi. I've been unable to find out anything about the touchpad. I did try searching for the drivers yesterday and couldn't find anything.

Went to Control Panel/Hardware and Sound/Device Manager/Mice and other pointing devices/

This only brings up a HID-compliant mouse. Right-clicking on it, going into Properties shows that the location of this is a USB Human Interface Device, so I assume this is the wireless mouse I currently have attached.

From Device Manager/Keyboard/ - this shows a HID Keyboard Device and also a standard PS/2 Keyboard.

I also tried going to Start/search and typing in touchpad, touch pad, synaptic, pointing device but it came back with 'no items match your search'

Looking at the bottom taskbar where the clock etc. is I cannot see an icon for the touchpad either.

When my son tried the laptop last night the keyboard wouldn't respond again. I also tried and couldn't get it to work.

This morning the keyboard is working but I removed the mouse first to check if the touchpad was working (it wasn't), so don't know if that affected the keyboard?

The laptop is JUST under 12 months old and my son is thinking of getting it checked out in case something needs fixing/replacing whilst it is still under guarantee. The only problem being that he got it from PC World (I know, I know, he wouldn't listen to Mum!).
Is there anyway of finding out if it is likely to be a hardware issue?

ih8stress

It looks to me like something to do with the touchpad driver but would that also affect the keyboard?

ih8stress

ih8stress wrote: »

When my son tried the laptop last night the keyboard wouldn't respond again. I also tried and couldn't get it to work.

This morning the keyboard is working but I removed the mouse first to check if the touchpad was working (it wasn't), so don't know if that affected the keyboard?

Just found out that the keyboard only works if I remove the usb mouse first and then re-connect it, when first switching the computer on.

Any thoughts on whether the laptop needs to be checked out before the warranty expires and on the touchpad driver query. Thanks:)

ih8stress

Quick Update:

Tried to go to an earlier restore point but for some reason it came back saying it was unsuccessful, so we removed the power cable, took out the battery and pressed the on switch for about 40 seconds to drain the power.

When we reconnected everything and switched it back on, hey presto it worked:j and the driver icon was back in the bottom taskbar again.

I knew you guys would come up trumps! Thanks to all of you :T