The keyboard included with my laptop has an E key that acts stuck - repeating the letter E over and over again. I removed the key to clean it only to discover that there was nothing that needed cleaning. The key isn't physically stuck, so I'm thinking it's either software related or an obscure hardware problem that would require a trip to the repair shop.
I checked the computer for viruses, defragmented both partitions of my hard drive, and did a system restore to a time before the key started acting up... nothing worked.
Since my laptop also has an external keyboard I used KeyKiller and MapKeyboard (one at a time) to try and disable the E key on the internal keyboard. MapKeyboard disabled the key on both the internal and external keyboards while KeyKiller did absolutely nothing. After that I tried disabling the entire internal keyboard, both by trying to uninstall the drivers using Device Manager (Windows simply reinstalled them after a restart and the key kept repeating) and dragging the driver files out of the system folder (Windows refused to move them saying I didn't have administrator privileges even though I have an administrator account - sometimes the system is a bit TOO protected).
Also, just to make this even more difficult, I discovered that my external keyboard won't work before Windows loads, which could be problematic if I need to select Safe Mode since starting normally is the default action...
What else can I try before physically disconnecting the internal keyboard? Not only do I not trust myself inside a tiny laptop but I don't want to have no keyboard if I need to do something other than starting Windows normally.
Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, Service Pack 1, 32 bit
Processor: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU 330 @ 1.60GHz, x64 Family 6 Model 28 Stepping 2
Processor Count: 4
RAM: 767 Mb
Graphics Card: NVIDIA ION, 256 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 102399 MB, Free - 23719 MB; D: Total - 125815 MB, Free - 98942 MB;
Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC., 1201N
Antivirus: avast! Antivirus, Updated and Enabled
I checked the computer for viruses, defragmented both partitions of my hard drive, and did a system restore to a time before the key started acting up... nothing worked.
Since my laptop also has an external keyboard I used KeyKiller and MapKeyboard (one at a time) to try and disable the E key on the internal keyboard. MapKeyboard disabled the key on both the internal and external keyboards while KeyKiller did absolutely nothing. After that I tried disabling the entire internal keyboard, both by trying to uninstall the drivers using Device Manager (Windows simply reinstalled them after a restart and the key kept repeating) and dragging the driver files out of the system folder (Windows refused to move them saying I didn't have administrator privileges even though I have an administrator account - sometimes the system is a bit TOO protected).
Also, just to make this even more difficult, I discovered that my external keyboard won't work before Windows loads, which could be problematic if I need to select Safe Mode since starting normally is the default action...
What else can I try before physically disconnecting the internal keyboard? Not only do I not trust myself inside a tiny laptop but I don't want to have no keyboard if I need to do something other than starting Windows normally.
Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.2
OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, Service Pack 1, 32 bit
Processor: Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU 330 @ 1.60GHz, x64 Family 6 Model 28 Stepping 2
Processor Count: 4
RAM: 767 Mb
Graphics Card: NVIDIA ION, 256 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 102399 MB, Free - 23719 MB; D: Total - 125815 MB, Free - 98942 MB;
Motherboard: ASUSTeK Computer INC., 1201N
Antivirus: avast! Antivirus, Updated and Enabled