At some point last night, my keyboard went nuts. At first I thought it was busted, since nothing was responding and no lights were on, but I unplugged it and plugged it back in to be sure.

It turned on, but first everything was in caps. When I tried to backspace and turn capslock off, all the buttons I hit opened various shortcuts in firefox, like the web console, the debugger, the HTML viewer. I opened notepad (the mouse worked fine, at this point, though it may have spazzed out when the shortcuts happened, that may have also been lag).

In notepad, the first few buttons I hit posted the last thing I copy'd. Then it acted like I was hitting enter or tab.

Figuring the whole thing was fucked somehow (this is a 2004ish machine, I have a PS/2 port and the plug for the keyboard is pretty banged up) I tried to use the on-screen keyboard to type out a message to a friend, letting them know I was resetting, only to discover the on-screen keyboard was doing the same weird shit.

Totally confused, I started up a virus scan and unplugged the net to be on the safe side. Checked the keyboard out of curiosity, and suddenly it was working again.

So at this point I've run every anti-virus/malware I have, and found nothing. You guys have any idea what the hell happened?

Running windows XP pro. I scanned with Avira (free) Malware-bytes (free) and GMER. Checked msconfig, and I didn't see anything unusual.

 

Something similar happened to me too. It took me a few minutes to find out I had shift button stuck and pressed. I unstuck it and everything was fine.

 

Have any hotkeys and/or media keys? I had that exact problem when I used one of the preset hotkeys setup, I just had to turn it off and it went back to normal.

Sounds weird that they onscreen keyboard is the same though.

What keyboard do you use?

 

I've experienced something similar about 3-4 times:

1st time: the cat had decided that the soft rubbery cord was an excellent chew toy

2nd version: the monitor elevation had sunk until it was resting on some of the function keys

3rd variation: whether by virus or simple mania, the keyboard driver was corrupted- I ended up remoting into the machine with Dameware, which uses a different driver for the remote keyboard control- was able to remove the PS/2 keyboard driver and reload it from local XP source folder

4th generation: touchscreen driver on my Samsung somehow goes insane when an RDP session is running, but only within the RDP screen. Disabling the touchscreen helps, but it re-enables whenever I do a full restart.

 

Sounds like a damaged keyboard.
If you can try testing with another keyboard. If you can't then once you are in Windows disconnect the keyboard and try using the on screen keyboard again.

 

The keyboard is old as hell. Early 2000's, at least, probably mid to late 90's. One of those bulky things with actual springs that feels like it's gonna last forever. I wouldn't be surprised if it did decide to go out on me, but it's what I'm typing on now without any issues. That said, the PS/2 plug is kinda fucked up, I think it's missing a prong, and it doesn't lock into the port quite how it should.

If a sticky key was the problem, I don't know which one. I tried holding down ctrl and hitting random buttons, then the same with alt, and neither are quite what I was dealing with. Ctrl just keeps opening the search function in notepad, for example. That would explain the on-screen keyboard, but I have no idea what key it could have been.

It's probably not the driver, if it were then I shouldn't be able to use this now.

This isn't an ongoing thing, it's just weird as hell. When unplugging the net seemed to fix it, my first thought was a fucked up keylogger, some attempt to hijack my keyboard, or some other weird ass virus issue.

 

Yeah, I'm aware of 'sticky keys'. My computer asks me if I'm sure I want sticky keys when I hit shift five times. I've never used it, so I have no idea what it looks like, but if it was I have no idea what could have triggered it.