Help! My Shift key is stuck!

Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.

Hello,
My computer mouse was stuck and wasn't moving. I attempted to fix it with the control setting on windows, but that didn't work. So I got frustrated and pressed too many keys on the keyboard. I think I pressed the shift key a couple times or held down on it for a couple of seconds. Now my keyboard is not working, there are sounds when I try to hit ANYTHING on the keyboard and my mouse is not working either. The only time something does happen when I hit the keyboard, is when I hit the function button and F3 at the same time, and that just refreshes the page. Please help.

Sounds like what the article above addresses. Have you rebooted since? That would be my other suggestion.

alright, i think i too held down the shift key too long while in excel making a formula and now my keyboard is locked up, although it types the numbers as characters as if the shift key is held down, but it does not type any other characters. The real problem is that i rebooted trying to fix it and my boot up screen is password protected and the key board is still not entering any characters, so i can't log on to fix the problem.
Help!!

Sounds like your keyboard might be broken. I assume you've actually powered the machine down? That can often reset a keyboard problem.

I was working in a word document and held the left mouse key along with another shift or cntrl or alt on the keyboard down for a few seconds and windows popped up a dialog that I just disregarded by selecting 'ok'. Now my computer is acting weird. When i am in a word document, I select with the mouse a point in the file and the behavior that i see is that word is highlighting from the beginning of the document to the point in the file that i clicked on with the mouse. Do you have any suggestions on how i can undo what i didn't know that i did?

That actually sounds almost exactly like what's described in the article you just commented on. Did those steps not help?

Hi there,
|Everytime I press shift, |I am getting this: ||||. How do |I get rid of it|?

|Thanks!
Sam

That sure looks like a hardware problem to me. I'd borrow another keyboard and swap it out. See if that helps.

There is a bug in the Microsoft mice that have the extra buttons that cause the computer to go to SHIFT LOCK if you press an arrow key wheile clicking button 4/5 on the mouse (which is very easy to accidently do). It has been there since 2003 and not been fixed yet! (see Microsoft article 266140)

I live in a very humid area of the world and it seems as though this has caused a short in my keyboard - specifically the 'alt'. The laptop thinks that I am pressing my alt key repeatedly. This is very frustrating as whenever I am in a window and trying to type, the laptop bring down all sorts of various menus from the menu bar. It's taking me a ling time just to write this. I have slowed down the repeat key option in the control panel / keyboard window and have even tried blow-drying my key board on a low temp. These things help temporarily, but the problem persists... Is there an option to just turn off the 'alt' key? Thank you for your help!

To post a comment on "Help! My Shift key is stuck!", please return to that article's main page.