[Exaxis]

Hello everyone. I got a brand new Gateway laptop from Fry's. After owning it for a few days, it has started doing something very strange and annoying. It is acting as though the Alt key is repeatedly being pressed, although I'm not touching it. If I am in Firefox, the Menu bar repeatedly appears and disappears over and over. It doesn't happen all of the time - sometimes it will continue on for a minute or so, and sometimes it will act normal for a few minutes.

When I reboot my computer it has a problem as it is starting to boot up. The booting process doesn't want to complete (it stops on a black screen), and I get tat loud, annoying beep sound playing over and over repeatedly, as though I was pressing a key I shouldn't be pressing.

It also doesn't seem to be a problem in every program. In notepad++, I've never seen it behave like the Alt key was being pressed. In firefox, however, it happens all the time. I also often have trouble clicking on a minimized aim window when this is happening.

I'm not inclined to believe that it's something stuck in the key, because it's a brand new computer and hasn't gotten dirty at all. I've only used the Alt key maybe once or twice before this happened anyway.

Does anyone else have any idea about what could be going on? Any help would really be appreciated.

EDIT: I just noticed something. i brought the on-screen keyboard up, and while the problem was happening, the on-screen keyboard was NOT registering the Alt keys as being pressed. To me this seems to indicate that something is happening in software somewhere, not in the keyboard itself. if that is the case, then where should this topic go?

Edited by Exaxis, 26 April 2011 - 10:22 AM.

[Advertisements]

Well if this problem occurs during start-up, I assume you mean before it even gets to the windows screen, I assume it's not a software problem. However, if it happens right before the windows screen, it still might be.

But first I would suggest draining your flea power. To do this, shut down your computer completely, remove the AC adapter, and the battery. With them removed, hold down the power button for 20 seconds or so, then replace the battery and AC Power.

Then you'll want to boot up into safe mode, Instructions on how to do so can be found here: http://support.gatew...5418su237.shtml The only thing I would suggest would be to repeatedly tap f8 during the bios screen.

If it doesn't boot into safe mode, try a couple more times to be sure, if still nothing, there's a problem with the hardware. If it does start into safe mode, try opening Firefox and see if the problem persists.

[Log2]

Well if this problem occurs during start-up, I assume you mean before it even gets to the windows screen, I assume it's not a software problem. However, if it happens right before the windows screen, it still might be.

But first I would suggest draining your flea power. To do this, shut down your computer completely, remove the AC adapter, and the battery. With them removed, hold down the power button for 20 seconds or so, then replace the battery and AC Power.

Then you'll want to boot up into safe mode, Instructions on how to do so can be found here: http://support.gatew...5418su237.shtml The only thing I would suggest would be to repeatedly tap f8 during the bios screen.

If it doesn't boot into safe mode, try a couple more times to be sure, if still nothing, there's a problem with the hardware. If it does start into safe mode, try opening Firefox and see if the problem persists.

[Exaxis]

Hi! Thanks a lot for your help!

I tried to drain my flea power, but this hasn't changed anything. After I put the battery back in I was able to boot into safe mode just fine. The problem still persists, however, whether I am in safe mode or not.

I have tried something however. I downloaded a program that disabled both of my Alt keys by remapping them to nothing. Even with this, however, the problem still happens. If firefox or another browser is open, the File menu repeatedly appears and disappears. In other applications different things happen depending on how they use Alt key presses.

The problem is very sporadic. Sometimes it seems like it won't ever stop, and other times it waits a long time before it will start. If I can't figure out what is causing this, I'm going to have to go back to fry's and see what they can do for me.