So apparently some time Thursday night, a key on my laptop became stuck.
On Thursday night, I left my computer up and running when I went to bed. Usually after 5 minutes, the screensaver comes on and after an hour it goes to sleep. For some reason, it didn't do this on Thursday night, as I woke up at 3AM on Friday and the found my laptop still fully awake.
On Friday I ran virus and adware/spyware scans and found nothing. I tried restarting which didn't fix it. I tried just doing a preview of my screensaver and it won't stay up for more than a second. So I figured it had to be something related to either the mouse or the keyboard (as those could both keep the computer from going to screensaver).
It took me until today to figure out that the reason for my problems was a stuck key. I used Filter Keys in Vista to make a sound any time a keystroke was accepted. As soon as I turned it on, a low, rhythmic sound came from my computer. Now any time I typed when Filter Keys was on, the sound was louder and a lot less rhythmic (as I don't type in rhythm or anything). As soon as I stopped typing though, the low, rhythmic sound returned. So some key is being pressed down.
I have been able to eliminate some keys as possibilities. It's obviously not a letter key as otherwise that letter would be typed continuously. It's also not the tab or spacebar (as either of those would have their own visible effects). It's also not any of the CTRL, Shift, or Alts (as I tried Sticky Keys which makes a sound when any of those are pressed, and it stayed quite until I pressed them). So that leaves it down to Esc, F1-F12, Fn, Backspace, etc.
Is there some way to find out what key is being held down? I've tried pressing each of the keys to get it to unstick, but the problem has remained. If I knew what key was being pressed though, I could focus my attention on trying to get that key unstuck.
Any help or advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Posted by Flaming Toad on a Stick (Member # 9302) on :
A key logger may be useful.
Posted by Lupus (Member # 6516) on :
have you tried pressing every key on your keyboard one at a time with filter keys running? I would guess that it would make a noise for every key except for the one that is already pressed (since it is already making a noise for that one).
Posted by pfresh85 (Member # 8085) on :
I'll try that Lupus. I'll edit this post after I'm done.
EDIT: No help there. Since the stuck key is constantly pressed, there's the constant sound there for it. You can tell when it detects another key pressed (as you usually hear the beat change slightly with the new sound), but it does that for all keys (including whichever one is stuck).
Here's another bit of information (something I didn't notice the laptop's been doing since this happened). Any time a new program is opened (even something like Windows Task Manager), it puts in the background behind all the other open applications. This seems odd, as usually programs that are just opened appear in the foreground, on top of all the other programs.
Posted by MidnightBlue (Member # 6146) on :
Certain F keys will tell your computer to do things on start up. If you hit F8 when your computer is being started, for example, it will give you the different boot options (normal, safe mode, etc.). If that isn't happening, it isn't F8. I believe on mine F2 and F12 also change things on start up. F1 generally brings up help menus, and F5 will refresh browser windows. If those aren't happening, you can cross those off the list. I'm guessing it isn't backspace, or you would have had an awful time typing up that post.
Posted by pfresh85 (Member # 8085) on :
That's probably true as well (it rebooted normally, so that eliminates some of the F keys). It's also not refreshing all the time, so there goes F5. No help menus either, so there goes F1. And you are correct about backspace as well. So at least the field is narrowing down some.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
This is a silly suggestion, but: have you tried opening a game that lets you change the control scheme, clicking on one of the commands, and watching to see what key it says you've pressed?
Posted by DDDaysh (Member # 9499) on :
Maybe this is a dumb suggestion too, but have you tried just taking out the keyboard and putting it back in?
Posted by pfresh85 (Member # 8085) on :
Unfortunately I don't have any PC games (aside from the stuff that comes with Vista), so I can't test the "change control scheme" idea.
As for taking out the keyboard, I'm a bit nervous doing that. Something about having to dismantle the laptop's frame to take out the keyboard makes me feel nervous.