Control key randomly coming on - though keyboard button working fi

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Guest

Hi, I have a brand new Hewlett Packard 8219 laptop that runs XP as the OS and
is loaded solely with Office XP and antivirus software (PCGuard).
Intermittently and at random (say once every few hours of working ) it seems
as if the Control key is triggered to come on and stays on. It usually
happens either in the middle of working on a document, or if I'm using the
mouse or touchpad to move files from folder to folder. The same effect occurs
if you hold down the control key and try dragging files or text - everything
highlights and copies itself to the new location; if you click on program
icons on the desktop they all highlight,
won't "unhighlight" if you click others, and lots of programs try opening at
once. A few times if Word has tried to open, a message comes up saying the
control key appears to be held down, do I want to continue? Once or twice the
Caps lock button has also malfunctioned at this point - when "On", all text
is lowercase, when "off" all text is uppercase. Sometimes if I close down all
programs the computer behaves itself again; often the only solution is to
lose what I've been working on and reboot. It's then fine for perhaps a few
more days.

The keyboard keys themselves are fine, and I've tried running a keyboard
diagnostic program during one of these funny turns, and it reports that the
keys all
work normally, INCLUDING the control keys.

The store I bought it from says it's probably a software issue from
"something you put on after purchase" - but I have very little installed on
the laptop - Office XP and antivirus software and I've scanned for nasties
and there are no viruses etc. I've reinstalled the operating system twice
already but still it persists. I googled stuck control key and it seems a few
people running IBMs or HPs in recent weeks have had similar problems but no
satisfactory solutions have been posted. A techie friend of mine suggested
it's a hardware problem, but that doesn't explain why IBMs would also be
affected.

Has anyone else come across this problem of the computer operating system
deciding spontaneously, intermittently and randomly to somehow "internally"
apply a normally-functioning control key? And what is the solution?
 
This sounds similar to some of the user "accessibility" options when they
are activated. How they get activated is another story. I've had users call
with such problems, and found the "accessibility" options partially active,
and the user has no idea how they might have been activated. I do know that
there are some key stroke combinations (poorly or not documented) that can
cause such things to occur. The difficulty seems to be to find out what the
key sequence was that caused the problem, and enter it again to possibly
clear the option. Many of the users complaining of such problems were
"speed typists".

One (Win 98) user allowed us to install a key logger for a limited time. We
found that a key sequence was occurring that duplicated a key sequence used
"only" on keyboards that were intended for use with far eastern languages.
In fact the key sequence involved key codes that the user could not directly
type. The users keyboard was changed to a different model with different
keyboard switch action and keyboard encoder, and the problem went away. We
suspected that one or more keys pressed in some simultaneous combination or
sequence caused the key codes to be generated.
 
Thanks...but it also happens if I am not using the keyboard at all. In fact I
first noticed the problem when I was sorting out my photo collection which
involved using the mouse to "lasso" lots of files (photos) and drag them
between different folders. If anything, that activity tends to bring the
problem on most consistently. But it happens whether I use an external mouse
or the built-intouchpad, both of which are apparently working fine.

If it was a unique combination of keys pressed in sequence I'd have thought
everyone who had bought this particular model laptop would have triggered it
and the problem would be all over the webgroups by now. The shop I bought it
from claimed it was a compatablity issue between the laptop and the software
I installed - but I cannot accept that a $2000 professional laptop cannot run
Ofice XP, and the problem was apparent even when there wasn't any other
software intalled.

Any other suggestions?
 
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