I am having a very rough time with getting a keyboard to work on a friends PC. They have a 1 year old HP Pavilion with WinXP with a ps2 keyboard. The symptoms started when they had a power outage when the pc was on. There is a surge protector, but it looks to be an off brand. After they powered it back on the keyboard did not respond.
They called tech support and were eventually sent a new identical keyboard . This has also failed to work. I thought that the ps2 keyboard port had been damaged and tried a USB keyboard but the symptoms remain.
The keyboard does work when the computer is posting. I can access the bios and boot into safe mode. In Windows however I get no response. One peculiar thing I noticed was that when in safe mode and logged in as 'Administrator' instead of the default account(also administrator privileges) the keyboard worked. I logged off and went back to the normal user account and it was not working again. Also, the multimedia buttons(stop, play, mute) work and have an on screen display, in any mode. Another possibly related symptom is that the system will hang at startup if the cable modem is plugged in. Plugging it in after startup works fine though.
I was on the phone with tech support for much longer than necessary and their solution was to send another keyboard. Here is a list of the things I have tried:
Uninstall the keyboard from the device manager
Tried safe mode
Scanned with Spybot Search and Destroy
Reset to defaults in the bios
A recent virus scan with Norton Internet Security
Tried a "soft reset" (unplugged all cables and held down the power button for a minute)
Checked the ps2 male and female plugs/pins
Tried another ps2 keyboard
Tried a new usb keyboard
Plugged in only the mouse(ps2), keyboard, video cable, and power
It could be the motherboard, but I am assuming that it is software related since it was able to operate when the usb keyboard was plugged in and in safe mode as Administrator, along with the multimedia buttons. Any suggestions for this peculiar problem? Calling tech support is leaving me in their continuous loop. I would like to avoid doing a repair or reinstall of Windows.
They called tech support and were eventually sent a new identical keyboard . This has also failed to work. I thought that the ps2 keyboard port had been damaged and tried a USB keyboard but the symptoms remain.
The keyboard does work when the computer is posting. I can access the bios and boot into safe mode. In Windows however I get no response. One peculiar thing I noticed was that when in safe mode and logged in as 'Administrator' instead of the default account(also administrator privileges) the keyboard worked. I logged off and went back to the normal user account and it was not working again. Also, the multimedia buttons(stop, play, mute) work and have an on screen display, in any mode. Another possibly related symptom is that the system will hang at startup if the cable modem is plugged in. Plugging it in after startup works fine though.
I was on the phone with tech support for much longer than necessary and their solution was to send another keyboard. Here is a list of the things I have tried:
Uninstall the keyboard from the device manager
Tried safe mode
Scanned with Spybot Search and Destroy
Reset to defaults in the bios
A recent virus scan with Norton Internet Security
Tried a "soft reset" (unplugged all cables and held down the power button for a minute)
Checked the ps2 male and female plugs/pins
Tried another ps2 keyboard
Tried a new usb keyboard
Plugged in only the mouse(ps2), keyboard, video cable, and power
It could be the motherboard, but I am assuming that it is software related since it was able to operate when the usb keyboard was plugged in and in safe mode as Administrator, along with the multimedia buttons. Any suggestions for this peculiar problem? Calling tech support is leaving me in their continuous loop. I would like to avoid doing a repair or reinstall of Windows.