 | | Please help, my computer goes rogue on me | | Dear CNET members,
Happy Friday the 13th! Before I get into Michael's laptop keyboard that has gone rogue on him ever since he dropped it, I have a couple of quick announcements. First up is the launch of CNET's Toolbar. Right now if you go to any CNET Web pages and look at the bottom of your screen (sorry, this feature is not available to Internet Explorer 6 users) you will see a subtle black bar going across the screen. From this toolbar you can access all the wish, research, and recommendation lists you've created--from using the CNET My List feature, your Download.com Watch lists, and if you are using CNET TechTracker, it will even list all your software updates. Everything from logging in and out to accessing your profile is also incorporated into this too bar--so everything is right at your fingertips. I hope you enjoy using this, and if you have any feedback, you know how to reach me. The second item on my list is the about the Deals and Bargains forum. The holidays are in full swing already. And with budgets being especially tight these days, every dollar we can save helps. So if you run across a great deal online or in your in-box, share it with all of us by posting it in the Deals and Bargains forum. This way all of us can benefit from it. The forum is only as good as the people who participate in it, so start sharing! Thanks all! Now let's see if we can home in on Michael's rogue keyboard issue. Well, Michael, sorry to see you had dropped your laptop. Before we get any further, I hope you have all your important data backed up, just in case something really goes rogue like your hard drive. Reading through all our members' answers to you, I would have to say many suggested that your problem stems from a hardware issue since your keyboard started to act up after the drop--ranging from a keyboard, hard drive, RAM module that has a loose connection to more serious issues as a damaged motherboard. However, we also can't rule out the possibility of other factors such as coincidental malware infection around the same or simply because of intense system resources being used up--best explained by member clap_clap here. I will admit these types of issues are difficult to troubleshoot and narrowing it down can be time consuming and takes some patience. And the only real way is the process of elimination--starting with simple stuff and knocking out the eliminating the possibility one at a time. For instance to see if the physical keyboard is the culprit, a simple yet effect solution was suggested from member wilswong on how to test to see if the physical keyboard is either loose or damaged. There are plenty of other great ideas and suggestions that you can try, and if some of the suggestions are beyond your technical ability, Michael, I would suggest leave it to a professional. I have selected a few suggestions from our members in the Q&A to start from, but there are plenty more member recommendations to read through. Good luck and please come back and follow up to tell us what you discovered and exactly what worked--we are all very curious. Thanks to everyone for your efforts. Have an awesome weekend and take care!
Cheers!
- Lee
Got suggestions? Send me an e-mail: messageboards@cnet.com | | | 
Lee Koo
CNET Community manager |  | | Last week's question | | | Please help, my computer goes rogue on me
 I have a three-year-old laptop, a Compaq nc6400. It's loaded with XP and I am using Microsoft Office '07, as I had a new hard drive installed last year when the old one started acting up. Now, I do go online at various hot spots around my community, but always have my AVG Security active during these visits. I recently dropped the laptop onto a hardwood floor while taking it out of the travel case I use. Since then it seems to run fine, except it will frequently (at least once every day or so) go "rogue" and stop responding to any key except possibly arrow up and down. When I repeatedly strike a key it won't respond until suddenly it will respond with multiple lines of a single character (or back spaces) until I hit "page down" or some other random key and it stops its machine gun behavior. I have picked this unit up held it securely and shaken it upside down, shut it down for 5 minutes and restarted it, used canned air across the keys and a Dust Buster-type vacuum with a focused nozzle on the keyboard, thinking maybe a food particle might be hiding back in some obscure corner. I have run Ad Aware, AVG Security, and Spybot Search and Destroy wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiithout any apparent help. What do your knowledgeable and generous tech helpers suggest? Do I spend my limited funds on a "hospital visit" at my local computer repair shop, or is there something else I should try first? Or maybe do again? Do I have a virus? Have I been hacked? Or is there just something shaken loose in the abrupt impact with the floor? I would appreciate your suggestions.
Thanks in advance for all your thoughts and attempts to help with this challenge.
-- Submitted by: Michael G. | | | |  |
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