keyboard lock

M

mathman

Valued Senior Member
On occasion my keyboard locks up. IBM thinkpad, Windows 7. It occurs when I am typing a message in a forum like now. Fortunately my mouse still works, so I can save the (incomplete) message and then restart the computer, freeing the keyboard. Any ideas why it is happening and is there a simpler way to free the keyboard?
 
I've seen the problem before on Toshiba laptops. I can't say for sure in your case, but in those cases it was a hardware interrupt problem on the mainboard.

Can you boot another OS from a USB stick, like Ubuntu or Mint? If your keyboard doesn't fail on a clean boot, look at a Windows problem. (Or many, many Windows problems...)
 
He didn't say wireless keyboard, though. He just said Thinkpad.

That doesn't address why it comes back for a few minutes after restart. That suggests a hardware failure, but I don't have it on my bench...
 
Dr_Toad said:
I've seen the problem before on Toshiba laptops. I can't say for sure in your case, but in those cases it was a hardware interrupt problem on the mainboard.

Can you boot another OS from a USB stick, like Ubuntu or Mint? If your keyboard doesn't fail on a clean boot, look at a Windows problem. (Or many, many Windows problems...)
Click to expand...

Something like Hirens Boot Disk would work for this (boot to TinyXP and see if it happens there).
 
The latest release date I found for that tool is 2012, so I doubt it can find the problem if it is malware.

There's something newer, I'm sure.
 
Dr_Toad said:
He didn't say wireless keyboard, though. He just said Thinkpad.

That doesn't address why it comes back for a few minutes after restart. That suggests a hardware failure, but I don't have it on my bench...
Click to expand...
Computer is not on battery, i.e. it is on house current. Keyboard comes back immediately after restart. Locking is a rare event.
 
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