I have a wireless dell and a wired dell keyboard, I have a dell pc windows xp. Neither will type. When I touch a letter or number sitortion lines run horizontally. I have uninstalled my driver and reinstalled and run a check which says all is well, but still no solution. Please help. Driving me crazy!!
That is not a problem with the keyboar, or with drivers. It is either a System problem, or more probably a bios, or motherboard fault.
To fix it use exclusively the wired keyboard, as wireless keyboard are not good in troubleshooting other problem, as, being driver controlled, they introduce more possible error factors.
Test the wired keyboard on a different computer, to ensure it is not faulty.
Reinstall a different system on the computer, or start your Dell from a bootable disk, that allows you to test the keyboard (eg. start with windows setup disk in Dos command prompt mode and test the keyboard, or start with windows install disk and test keyboard in insert serial box).
If yoyu can properly see the characters that you type for example into the enter serial box, when starting from windows setup CD, then reinstall the system.
If you still cannot see the character you are typing, even starting from a bootable CD, then you need to reinstall the bios, using a bios upgrade that you can download from Dell website.
Can you just take a snapshot of the characters using printscrn. Do this way
With characters wrongly displayed on screen, press print scrn (eg a word document on Word , or this same page).
Open photoshop, paint , or any graphic program, crop the image to a small square with the characters, a couple of words would be enough, then save as jpeg.
Send jpeg here using picture with tree button above.
If the characters are readable , but just a bit distorted, or like wobbling lines, that is a problem with the graphic chipset on motherboard, nothing to do with keyboard, system etc.
If that is true you need to call Dell, and insist that this is a factory defect, you may be offered a free replacement for your PC.
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Connect your wired keyboard to the system, the during the booting process press F8 key repeatedly, select system retore option restore your system to some previous date where its working fine
Hi Larry,
Let's focus on the wired keyboard first, as we don't have to worry about the possibility that there is a problem with the wireless transmitter.
A few more data points would be very helpful in resolving your problem:
1) Is the wired keyboard a USB or a PS2 style keyboard? If it plugs into a USB port, then it is a USB type.
2) If you go into control panel/device manager, is there a yellow exclamation point or question mark next to the keyboard description? Are there any yellow exclamation points or question marks anywhere else? If so, what devices are they next to?
3) What were you doing on the computer immediately before the problem happened, if you know?
4) Do you know approximately when it happened?
5) Do you have access to another desktop computer that has a keyboard that is known good (is working right now)?
Sorry for the long list of questions, but if you can provide this information I'm confident we can find hte source of your problem.
Bob
OK Larry, we have a few things that we can try, assuming my assumption that the problem occurs when you depress any key on the keyboards, not just a particular key and that the output on your monitor looks normal until you strike a key (the system boots fine, you see the XP boot logo, you get to your desktop OK, you can open programs, etc.):
1) Plug the keyboard into a different USB port. A USB keyboard should offer basic functionality with just the built-in Windows drivers installed. By plugging into a different USB port, we will force XP to reinstall the driver for the keyboard, plus we get to see if there is something funky with that USB port. Ideally, if there are two separate places on the machine to hook up to USB ports, that would be ideal.
2) If this doesn't help, go back into the device manager section, select properties, then see if the option to roll-back the driver exists. If it does, then roll the driver back to its previous state and see if that cures the problem.
3) If this doesn't work, I would then try to do a system restore to a date that you know is before the date that the problem started. If you are not familiar with system restore, I'll walk you through the basics. First, click "Start", then select "run". At the "run" prompt, type "msconfig" without the quotation marks and hit the enter key. When the msconfig window appears, click the button that says something like "start system restore" (I'm on a Vista box right now, so I can't give you the exact label). Then follow the options to select a restore point and make sure that you go back in time to a point that you know is before the problem began. XP will then attempt to restore the system. This will involve a reboot of the machine.
4) If this still doesn't work, you could try to reinstall your XP system files. Assuming that Dell has not blocked this function, go to start/run again. At the run prompt, type "cmd" (no quotes). When the DOS-style command prompt "box" appears, type "sfc /scannow" (no quotes). Make sure the space is in the right spot, or else you'll get some sort of syntax error. At this point, go get a cold beverage of your choice, as this will take a while to run.
To be honest with you Larry, this sounds for all the world like a defective keyboard, but the steps you've taken should eliminate that. The first steps that I've laid out should eliminate a simple driver issue. Switching to a different USB port should eliminate most other hardware considerations. If all these steps fail, I think you have an issue that you'd probably be best served by taking it up with Dell. It would be an extreme measure, but a reinstall of XP would likely fix the issue. If not, then you would probably have some sort of issue with the motherboard.
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Are the keyboard working well with other computers??
are they mechanical ones or electronic?
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Hi Bob, appreciate your help. It was in a USB Port, My son was on the computer two weeks ago and cant pinpoint the exact timing. I've since tried a third keyboard which is oing the same thing. When I went into the control panel there wasnt a yellow exclaimation point or icon. thanks
the problem isnt with the keyboards, the horizontal distortion is just that a very thin horizonal distorion blip whenever i hit any key on either keyboard. They keyboards work with other computers
I have a wireless dell and a wired dell keyboard, I have a dell pc windows xp. Neither will type. When I touch a letter or number sitortion lines run horizontally. I have uninstalled my driver and reinstalled and run a check which says all is well, but still no solution. Please help. Driving me crazy!! Comment by larryretro, posted on Oct 22, 2008
Hi Bob, appreciate your help. It was in a USB Port, My son was on the computer two weeks ago and cant pinpoint the exact timing. I've since tried a third keyboard which is oing the same thing. When I went into the control panel there wasnt a yellow exclaimation point or icon. thanks
Comment by larryretro, posted on Oct 28, 2008
the problem isnt with the keyboards, the horizontal distortion is just that a very thin horizonal distorion blip whenever i hit any key on either keyboard. They keyboards work with other computers
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