Q - XP and Keyboard Shortcuts

[rtfm7235]

Help, this is driving me nuts.... two questions -
I have XP SP1 installed with 3 Admin user profiles. I have an Acer 6511-VA keyboard manufactured by Darfon Electronics that has 3 extra keys on the keyboard above the cursor key set, from left to right they are 1. an icon of an alarm clock, 2. CAP Z exponent z, and 3. an icon of a power plug with forward slash through it. I checked their website to try to get a key map, but no luck. I'm trying to determine these keys functions, because I think they may be linked to a problem I am having which is;

QUESTION 2 -
For about a week, while keystroking any message in a forum or an IM client, every time I try to access some of the upper case characters on this keyboard with the 'left' shift key, all I get is a 'beep' tone and the cursor jumps to another field. Also, pressing the 'right' shift key results in start-up of an IE instance. When using a word processing application, trying to use the 'left' shift key to capitalize any letter results in a 'tab', a right bracket character and two alpha characters. This repeats every time the 'left' shift key is pressed.
Any assistance in sorting this out is appreciated, as I've just about given up on XP and Windows help....
....and yes, I've tried System Restore to 'roll-back' to a point before this happened, but no luck.


"But I don't have an "any" key...<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by rtfm7235 on 11/16/02 12:50 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Zoron]

Sounds like a hosed keyboard or keyboard controller. Best thing to do is plug in another keyboard and see if it does the same thing...

The alarm clock icon could mean it's a wake button... the power plug key could be to turn off the power. As for the other key, I have no idea. The only thing I can see it being used for is possibly to access special functions on the keyboard. For example, my keyboard has a Fn button on it. I noticed that some of my function keys have an extra symbol on them... my F11 key has an open lock symbol on it. One possibility that I can see is that the weird Z key on your keyboard is stuck... meaning that everytime you hit your keys, you're accessing the second function they have assigned to them.

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>

 

[rtfm7235]

Thanks for the feedback, hope it isn't the controller, this system is only a couple months old. Found out what the double Z key is...places / pulls the system into / out of sleep mode. I'll try another keyboard once I pick up a dongle, anyone else have any other thoughts

"But I don't have an "any" key...

 

[Lonemagi]

try changing your accessability otions under the control panel, and disable stickykeys. and try under mouse settings, soem of them move he cursor jus by pressing key combo's

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If the Scatman can do it so can you...

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