[ritesofspring1]

ok so the other day i switched my fujitsu-siemens amilo pi1536 on and the keyboard wouldnt work except it would bring up the vowels, but with accents on. so i opened up the onscreen keyboard so i could work my way around while i tried figure out what was wrong.


after accidentaly closing the onscreen keyboard i discovered that the actualy keyboard was working again. and ever since then on start-up i have to open the onscreen-keyboard and close it again before it will let me type normally.


so ive had the laptop to pieces to see if there was something inside or some damage done to the circuit board and none that i could see. ive been through the registry where everything is alright, device manager too. ive downloaded the latest drives to no avail and it still doesn't work even with the original drivers from the disc installed again.


i could get used to the having to open the onscreen everytime i start up, wouldt bother me for a little while but i would soon get over it, but the problem is im running ubuntu as well and unfortunately i can't press down and enter to boot in ubuntu.


ive tried everything i could think of but nothing works. im at a complete loss as to what is wrong. the keyboard works perfectly once the onscreen has been opened and closed, and when i booted ubuntu from the disc the keyboard worked fine straight away.


the only thing i can think of is that the rest of my family all dive for my laptop the second i step out of the house, and well none of them would admit if they had spilt anything.


im sure the solution is extremely simple, but well, for the life of me i just can't see it.


i would really like to be able to get it sorted without sending it off or having to reinstall windows.


anybody any ideas?

[coastie65]

Hi ritesofspring and welcome to the forum. Are you running an operating system other than unbuntu as you said you were booting that from disk ? coastie65

[ritesofspring1]

hi there. thanks for the welcome.

yeah probably should have mentioned i run on xp most of the time.

it is because even when it comes hitting f8 to go into the setup menu when i switch it on that im thinking it is a hardware problem.
but then because it works fine on ubuntu it makes me wonder if its a software problem. i just cant figure it out.

ive also ran a few virus scans and there is nothing on the machine at all

[coastie65]

Ok, you may or maynot have tried this but I am going put it out there. If you can remember the approximate time this started occurring, you can try and do a restore to a point before that time and see if that helps. coastie65

[ritesofspring1]

dya know i didnt even think about that and theres a restore point from the day before it started happening. ill give that ago and ill let you know if it helps.

[ritesofspring1]

ok just tried that and the problem is still there.

think im gonna have a tantrum if i cant get this fixed

[coastie65]

Hey, This a long shot, but with the description of your problem and someone else toying around with it no harm in looking. You said at start up all you got were vowels and accents. Go to control panel and click on the globe icon for regional languages. It should show English, but it could have been changed to something else. coastie

[ritesofspring1]

nope, still nothing.

if i can hit f2 and the right time i can get into bios where the keybord works fine. but as soon as i am out it does the same thing again and won't work untill the onscreen keyboard is turned on then off again.

its as if there is something missing from the startup to tell it that there is a keyboard there. but like i said already everything in the registry and device manager are fine.

im grateful for your help though, you pointed out a couple of things i hadnt thought of. anymore ideas?

[coastie65]

I am going to PM another member and bring him in to this. I don't have a laptop and may be missing something. I do find this somewhat puzzling as you can use your onscreen keyboard and the revert back to the hard keyboard and it works fine. I know there is a way to reset a screwy desktop keyboard but forgot exactly how to do it. coastie

[mphenterprises]

Hi RitesofSpring and welcome to the PCWorld Communities. :D




First, I was the one who changed your Discussion title to give a clearer indication of your question. For future reference, please be as descriptive as possible in both the heading of your Discussion as well as the post itself.

Now, have you tried to access Safe Mode? If you are not sure how to access Safe Mode, follow the steps laid out within this Document {document:id=1093}. My hunch is that since the keyboard works while in the BIOS, it should work in Safe Mode. If it does, then I would gather that there is a setting or driver issue that is affecting your keyboard during normal operation.

[coastie65]

Hey mph, Man you must have been on my channel as I was just going to PM you about this. coastie

[mphenterprises]

LOL :D I have that affect a lot LOL LMBO This is a very unique situation. We have not had one like this in a while so we were due. :D

[coastie65]

Yeah. I was thinking a setting and thought maybe someone had maybe changed the language, but that would reflect on the onscreen keyboard as well, as far as I know. coastie

[ritesofspring1]

Hey, sorry had to call it a night there. But even when its booted in safe mode you still end up having to open the on-screen keyboard before the actual keyboard will work.

I've been on the phone to Fujitsu themselves most of the day and the only advice they can give me is to install Windows again, which is the last thing I want to do.

[mphenterprises]

Okay, we definitely do not want to go down that road yet. Please create a new User Account (with Administrative access), restart your computer, and log into the new User Account. See if you get the same issue with this new User Account.