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Summary: Every so often a keyboard stops working or acts up. It's tempting to look everywhere but at the most likely culprit: the keyboard itself. The number '2' key stopped working. And when I type the 'Q' key, I sometimes get a 'a' instead. What am I doing wrong? Is there a setting I need to adjust? It's a surprisingly common question - a key on the keyboard is acting up for some reason. There are several reasons that a key might not work, but a very large number of people fail to realize a very simple fact: Keyboards can break. • When you think about it, your keyboard is perhaps the most exposed and abused piece of equipment related to your computer. It's full of many, many moving parts, and - whether you like to think about it or not - dirt. Lots of dirt. All sorts of "stuff" that falls between the keys and stays there. Given that, and how we often abuse our keyboards (tell me you've never pounded on yours - I know I have!), it's actually amazing that they last as long as they do. When they break, various things can start to happen. When an individual key stops working all together, it's fairly obvious. But when pressing one key results in multiple characters being "typed", or an entirely different character all together - physical problems with the keyboard are always suspect. A short in the wires beneath the keys can easily produce all sorts of wired behavior. So... your keyboard starts acting up. What do you do? I'd eliminate the "easy stuff" first - software can play a role in getting things confused. "...it's actually amazing that they last as long as they
do."
If your problem is around the Shift, Alt and Ctrl keys, you might want to check this article: Help! My Shift key is stuck!. There's an accessibility feature than can be enabled by mistake that changes the behavior of these keys. If almost all your keys are producing the wrong characters, check out What's Dvorak, and why did my keyboard layout suddenly change? There are alternate keyboard layouts, and if your computer was mistakenly configured to use one of them, things can get very confusing very quickly. If your keyboard seems to be typing on its own, this article might have a clue: Why does my computer go nuts sometimes? Voice recognition might be enabled and turning what your computer "hears" into keystrokes. So what if none of those help? Your keyboard might have a problem, or it might just be broken. One of the things I often do is gently clean the keyboard with a little compressed air. Turn it upside down, or tilted to one side, I try and blow some of the crud out from underneath the keys. It can get fairly disgusting to see what's been in there if you haven't done it for a while, but this can sometimes remove dirt that is interfering with a key's operation If that doesn't help, I always recommend shutting down, and then swapping the keyboard with another - or in the case of a laptop, plugging in an external keyboard. Assuming your replacement keyboard works, you now know that the problem is actually with your old keyboard itself. Keyboards are so cheap these days that replacing it is often your best bet. If the problem doesn't go away even when you use a different keyboard, then it's fairly certain that it's your computer somehow. Unfortunately there are many places that could be a problem. The chances of any of them actually being "it" are pretty low, but at this point they're all you have left. They might include:
But in my experience the thing that most people overlook, that is in fact the most common cause of keyboard related problems is the keyboard itself. Related:
• Recent Comments
Surprisingly, you can actually wash a keyboard in the dishwasher (or by hand). Avoid doing this with wireless keyboards, or anything fancy or complicated (e.g don't try it with those MS/Logitech models with lots of extra buttons and dials; or buckling-spring keyboards), but for a plain, bog standard PS2 membrane keyboard it should work fine. Some tips: - Don't wash it at too hot a temperature; plastic can warp. - If you have a dishwasher with a 'heated dry' cycle, disable it; same reason as above. - To dry the keyboard, take all the keys off* and just leave the body vertically or upside down for a good length of time - a few days - in a well-ventilated place, to ensure all the water has evaporated. Good luck! P.S. Don't try this with mice, or anything other than keyboards. And once again, don't try this with wireless keyboards. (*Leo, don't blame me if you get a spate of questions in 3 days asking which keys go where on a keyboard...) Posted by: Simon at November 23, 2006 09:56 AMAddendum: If you try this with a laptop, *do* just wash the keycaps and not the rest of the, err, "keyboard"... Posted by: Simon at November 23, 2006 10:01 AMGreat if that worked for you, but .... wow. No way would I attempt that as anything other than an absolute last resort - just before I'd throw the keyboard away. I'd expect washing to do more damage than good, actually. However if it worked for you, I can't really argue with that. But ... wow. Posted by: Leo Notenboom at November 23, 2006 10:45 AMAddendum 2: for the pedants, when I said "a plain, bog standard membrane keyboard" I of course meant "a plain, bog-standard dome-switch keyboard". Posted by: Simon at November 23, 2006 11:21 AMSorry, Leo, didn't see your comment before posting the addendum. It's actually apparently quite common; Google throws up loads of people who've done it sucessfully. There's not really much it can damage in a normal keyboard -- they're pretty simple mechanically -- except if either the heat makes the plastic warp, or if for some reason you leave it several days without drying it, in which case it's possible for the metal 'tracks' to corrode. If you're really hardcore, if the latter happens, you could try patching them up with a high-graphite ('soft', 'black') pencil... Posted by: Simon at November 23, 2006 11:29 AMi did it,works great.also i put a fan on it to speed drying. Posted by: fred at November 24, 2006 06:20 PMI had a experience with juice being spilled on a keyboard. I turned the keyboard over and took out all those little screws on the bottom and then pried the board apart. What I discovered, there where 3 sheets of plastic, one with printed circuits on, they where all gummed togther. Using alcohol rub I cleaned them all off and put it all together again. Worked just fine after that. Posted by: Terry Hollett at November 25, 2006 06:17 AMA less obvious problem may be at fault! Do you live in a 3rd world country? Check the voltage coming from your wall outlet. If it starts rising towards 300 volts your 220-115v transformer will not be able to cope and your computer will start doing crazy things. This is more likely to happen in a high salt environment. The transformers that are bought in 3rd world countries advertise the same benifits as a uninterruptable power source (UPS) however they provide absolutely no protection for your PC! I live in Fortaleza, the Northeastern corner of Brazil. Posted by: Howard Rubin at November 26, 2006 12:25 PMThe Q being swapped for an A might suggest that for some reason a non English keyboard layout has been selected in software somehow (AZERTY rather than QWERTY. I have two servers and they have different keyboards so I am used to the problem. Posted by: Steve at November 28, 2006 02:57 AMPost a comment on "My '2' key stopped working. How do get Windows to recognize it again?":
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