???What could be going on here? All of a sudden my husband’s Gateway laptop with WinXP Pro is typing the following whether in lower or upper case and whether in Word or Google:
o=6
i=5
l=3
k=2
j=1
m=0
p=*
u=4
We have the free version 4.8 Avast, Ad-Aware, and Spybot. I’ve run all three with no problems detected (we’re pretty good about maintenance).
Anybody have any idea?
Isn’t it a keyboard failure? At least, the keyboard drivers?
Nope, it seems you have activated your num lk key.
When this hapens, it means you use the numerical pad of your laptop. In this case, the kees you mentioned, act as your numpad.
I supose that the complete list is:
j=1 /= +
k=2 .= .
l=3 ;= -
u=4 p= *
i=5 0= /
o=6
7=7
8=8
9=9
m=0
Look for a key that has: num lk
writen on it.
Then press it.
if this doesn’t wor you have to press and hold down the fn and then press the num lk key
hope this helps.
Wow… that was a simple one. Never thought on that. Seems correct looking at my laptop keyboard.
Well, I’ll take care of the simple ones if you solve the harder ones. ;D
Hope this was the issue for aks.
@aks,
Please confirm if this fixed your problem.
lol.
@aks, Please confirm if this fixed your problem.
I’m sure it did. I can’t tell you how many times I get this question. ;D
Sometimes these kinds of problems are quickly solved by restart into Safe Mode → Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked).
Just for reference, some keyboards with have that key labeled as … Num Lock … depending on the size of the keys. I have also accidentally pressed that key from time to time.
Sorry to bring up an old post, but I think there is something in Avast causing this behavior. I recently installed Pro on 2 clients machines and it caused this same issue on their laptop, and on both computers it switched the Caps Lock (meaning that Off is On, and On is Off). It may be easy to click the right buttons to get the keys behaving properly, but it’s embarrassing to tell someone, “Just remember that it’s the opposite of what it should be.” Is this a bug? It did the same thing on my desktop, so I’m pretty sure this is a well documented and wide-spread issue.
this can also happen if you found a way to force num lock to be on by default on the login screen. Works a couple of times, and all of a sudden, when you’re logged in, off becomes on and vice versa. I can’t think a second that Avast can provoke that.
chrisaroz, like Logos, I can’t see any reason for avast to have made this behavior…
I don’t think this 90% avast fault, have you checked your keyboard and inside of your keyboard to make sure is there any weird things stay at you keyboard inside or got a liquid spilled on your keyboard inside?
Have you tried to check and installed avast pro with others PC/Notebook?
Speaking from the novice perspective, I have been working with computers (non-professionally) for 15 years and I’ve never seen a program alter the function of the Num and Caps keys.
I always wondered how that worked. Mine is usually automatically on for my Desktop which has a separate numpad. For the laptop it’s always off and that’s the way I like. But how would you force numlock to be on by default?
Actually google answered this one:
http://bink.nu/forums/p/4882/4915.aspx
Hope this helps.
Hi folks,
If you are experiencing any weird combination on your keyboard it could also be because you had lunch and typed at the same time. Turn over the keyboard and tap the breadcrumbs etc. out, restart the comp and everything is back to normal,
pol
Without doing the registry edit, Windows is “supposed” to learn to turn it on automatically. I think if you hit the num lock key before you log on 3-5 times, it will just start to do it for you. I’ve never had the patience to sit there and do it, but it’s supposed to…