Hello all, I have an old toshiba laptop. This machine is running windows95 that was recently upgraded to 95B. At the same time a netgear wireless adapter 401 was installed. The netgear adapter was installed to the point of showing contact with the router, but I was unable make connection with the router. Following this the system would not boot up in other than- safe mode. Removing the wireless adapter allowed booting but the keyboard has lost some of its functionality. Using shift key, having used the upper case, then reverses its function, ie- free produces caps , depressed ,produces lower case. This state eliminates the use of the Slash (\) keys and number keys. Well thats it , any thoughts out there? Help please. thanks, Paul

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You mean, like it's stuck in CAPS LOCK?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Jerry, thanks for your reply to my problem. The "caps lock" function is reversed after the shift key has used for the first time after booting. By reversed I mean that the upper case state exists when the caps lock light is off and the lowercase function operates when the light is on. the shift key has no effect when in this condition, and use of the keys produces only caps. There is a loss of function in the numeric keys and other keys such as the slash keys. I have tried another keyboard but the condition is the same, this is the reason I thought it to be a system problem. Thanks again, Paul.


On Tuesday, November 27, 2007 at 11:56 am, Jerry wrote:
>You mean, like it's stuck in CAPS LOCK?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi Paul:

If your Toshiba is anything like my Tecra 510,
there are some strange conditions you can get
into with that "FN" key.  I'm careful not to
press it.  Whenever I get stuck in one of those
weird modes, I have to look in the manual to
get myself back to normal, because the Toshiba
"remembers" the setting from one day to the
next.

First, make sure you aren't in "Resume" mode,
which never lets the computer do a full shutdown
and reboot.  Mine toggles with FN+F3, and there's
no tally light to tell you whether it's on or off.
The only way I know to check is to go into "real" 
DOS and turn the computer power switch off.  
When I next turn the power switch back on, if it
comes right back to the DOS prompt without going
through "POST", you're stuck in "Resume" mode.
Get out of it.

FN+F10 and FN+F11 do some things to NUMLOCK and
the arrow keys, but there are tally lights that
stay lit when these features are engaged.

FN+F12 controls SCROLL LOCK, has no tally, and
I don't know what SCROLL LOCK does when it's
engaged.  Sorry.

There's also an "FN" setting in the BIOS.  I keep
mine set on "Disabled."

I've also wrecked one internal keyboard once
using an external keyboard in the PS-2 port.
But nobody ever was able to explain why that
should wreck the internal keyboard, but it sure
did, so I don't use external keyboards anymore.

Good luck.

Jerry

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Scroll Lock locks the scrollbars. You won't be able to scroll.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I don't understand.  I just turned on SCROLL LOCK
on my computer with a full-sized keyboard and a
tally light to show it's on.

I can still scroll this page with my mouse and with
the up/down arrow keys.

Are we talking about some other "Scroll Bar" than
that oblong box at the right edge of my screen?

Jerry
("Always willing to learn something new.")

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Weird. I just tried it with Notepad and an Explorer window, and scrolling still works with Scroll Lock. I could have sworn that was the use of Scroll Lock, though. Maybe on older Windows...

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi Jerry and all, thanks for the comments re keyboard. I have discovered that somehow I've obtained duplicate instalations of some drivers, I've now removed the duplicates and some unwanted programmes. The result of this is that the funcionality of the keyboard has returned. Having got this far I thought a restore of registry would be a good idea, as suggested in the windows 95 documentation, but trouble again! Booting up to "starting windows 95", choose "prompt only" option I tried to type, "cd c:\ " but could not get the"\" to register !!!, "/ " registers fine. Any thoughts on this ? Thank you all for your patience and interest. Paul.


On Friday, November 30, 2007 at 7:25 am, Benoit wrote:
>Weird. I just tried it with Notepad and an Explorer window, and scrolling still works
>with Scroll Lock. I could have sworn that was the use of Scroll Lock, though. Maybe
>on older Windows...

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi Paul:

Do you get a vertical line when you type "\"?
As if the key were being shifted?

You might open a blank NOTEPAD page and walk
through the whole keyboard, unshifted then
shifted, and see if there are any other funky
keys.  This won't fix anything, but might give us
a clue about the problem.

Also, this won't fix your problem, but you can
improvise a "\" by holding down the left ALT key
while typing "9" then "2" on the number pad. 

If your laptop doesn't have a dedicated number
pad, then the FN+F11 "NUMLOCK" needs to be
engaged, and you have to use the "2" that the "K"
turns into.  This tip won't work with just the
regular number keys at the top of the keyboard.

Jerry

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Jerry, sorry for the delay in response to your most welcome comments last Saturday. I don't get a vertical line when entering,"\" ,nothing appears. I followed your suggestion re. notepad and a walk through the keyboard. All is correct and functions well. The problem seems to be a restriction only when in the DOS mode. Strange eh. any further thoughts would be welcome. Paul.


On Saturday, December 1, 2007 at 9:21 pm, Jerry wrote:
>Hi Paul:
>
>Do you get a vertical line when you type "\"?
>As if the key were being shifted?
>
>You might open a blank NOTEPAD page and walk
>through the whole keyboard, unshifted then
>shifted, and see if there are any other funky
>keys. This won't fix anything, but might give us
>a clue about the problem.
>
>Also, this won't fix your problem, but you can
>improvise a "\" by holding down the left ALT key
>while typing "9" then "2" on the number pad.
>
>If your laptop doesn't have a dedicated number
>pad, then the FN+F11 "NUMLOCK" needs to be
>engaged, and you have to use the "2" that the "K"
>turns into. This tip won't work with just the
>regular number keys at the top of the keyboard.
>
>Jerry
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I'm running out of ideas.  This one's a long shot.

Check through your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS
files (if you have either), and make sure you can
identify each item listed.  Make sure there's
nothing that points to ANSI.SYS.

Back in the good old DOS days, ANSI.SYS was a
method for remapping the keyboard.  I don't know
of anything still using it nowadays, but it was
still included with Win2K.  It lives in the
C:\WINNT\system32
folder.

Jerry

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Jerry Hi again!! you must be tiring of this problem. thanks for your further suggestions. I do have both Autoexec.bat and Config.sys but would not know what to expect in either. I do have the Ansi.sys file in c:\windows\command folder. More information;-the reversal of function in the caps is back. The left hand side, shift key does not operate. The right hand side shift key, does work. The caps lock key also operates. If you are going to suggest action with the Ansi.sys , please give me a blow by blow action, this is all very daring stuff for me. Many thanks for your continued help. Paul.


On Monday, December 10, 2007 at 12:02 pm, Jerry wrote:
>I'm running out of ideas. This one's a long shot.
>
>Check through your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS
>files (if you have either), and make sure you can
>identify each item listed. Make sure there's
>nothing that points to ANSI.SYS.
>
>Back in the good old DOS days, ANSI.SYS was a
>method for remapping the keyboard. I don't know
>of anything still using it nowadays, but it was
>still included with Win2K. It lives in the
>C:\WINNT\system32
>folder.
>
>Jerry

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi Paul:

As I said, this is a long shot.

You can open AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS with
NOTEPAD from within Windows, or from a DOS
prompt with EDIT.COM.

From DOS, type:
EDIT  c:\autoexec.bat
and press ENTER.

Look for "ANSI.SYS" written anywhere.

Use CTRL+F then "X" to close EDIT.COM

Then do the same for CONFIG.SYS.

You might also check for (and examine) a file called
C:\DOSSTART.BAT
but you probably won't have one.

If no more leads appear, I think your keyboard
is damaged like mine was.  I see new replacements for
my Toshiba model still show up on eBay, but
laptops are notoriously hard to take apart.
I'm not afraid of mine anymore, but I can't
recommend doing-it-yourself to anybody but the
most adventurous.

Jerry

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi Jerry, it continues! On starting up to try your latest suggestions only "safe mode" could be obtained. Working through " conflicts "in "Help", a number of items were found to have duplicated as was previously the case when the keyboard problems started. Removing the duplications allowed starting normally. Now to your suggestions, under the Autoexec, there were 4 entries on the c drive, example,-windows\temp>set NWLanguage=English, repeated 5 times. Inthe same listing ">REM- By windows95 network for network upgrade". No sign of ANSI. sys. On the Config sys search, file \temp , contained the detail;-" REM DEVICE=cd1.sys/D:banana/P:1fo, "with a number of suffix entries. A further entry in this file was , "DEVICE= HIMEM.SYS/testmem:off". Again no ANSI. Sys, entry. I do have a "Dosstart.bat" file, the only entry i can get in this is, "another driver present, please remove it and try to reinstall", A very polite request but Icould not find a driver it was refering too. All the foregoing discovery does suggest to my non expert mind that the problem is a system difficulty rather than hardware, what do you think? Thanks and regards ,Paul.


On Tuesday, December 11, 2007 at 11:59 am, Jerry wrote:
>Hi Paul:
>
>As I said, this is a long shot.
>
>You can open AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS with
>NOTEPAD from within Windows, or from a DOS
>prompt with EDIT.COM.
>
>From DOS, type:
>EDIT c:\autoexec.bat
>and press ENTER.
>
>Look for "ANSI.SYS" written anywhere.
>
>Use CTRL+F then "X" to close EDIT.COM
>
>Then do the same for CONFIG.SYS.
>
>You might also check for (and examine) a file called
>C:\DOSSTART.BAT
>but you probably won't have one.
>
>If no more leads appear, I think your keyboard
>is damaged like mine was. I see new replacements for
>my Toshiba model still show up on eBay, but
>laptops are notoriously hard to take apart.
>I'm not afraid of mine anymore, but I can't
>recommend doing-it-yourself to anybody but the
>most adventurous.
>
>Jerry
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi Paul:

So, let me get this straight in my mind -- if you
start up in REAL DOS -- i.e., you select COMMAND
PROMPT from the F8 black-and-white boot up menu --
the only key you have trouble with is "\" and all
the other keys work OK?

Then when you load Windows, all these other
keyboard anomalies appear?

Jerry

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi Jerry, to answer your question ,- almost yes. When in DOS The letter keys work ok on the right hand side of the keyboard but in reverse case on the left hand side, the number keys do not work at all. When in windows the multitude of problems occur. Sorry to cause you to have to dig so deep, the problem is the problem. Regards Paul.


On Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 1:04 pm, Jerry wrote:
>Hi Paul:
>
>So, let me get this straight in my mind -- if you
>start up in REAL DOS -- i.e., you select COMMAND
>PROMPT from the F8 black-and-white boot up menu --
>the only key you have trouble with is "\" and all
>the other keys work OK?
>
>Then when you load Windows, all these other
>keyboard anomalies appear?
>
>Jerry

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I'm going back to "hardware issue" with the 
keyboard.

You might try plugging a standard 101 keyboard
into the PS2 connector on the back of the laptop
(while the power is off).  See how it behaves in real
DOS.

I've hesitated to recommend trrying this before,
because this is what I was doing when I blew out
my first laptop keyboard -- which behaved exactly
as yours is behaving now.  Nobody was ever able
to explain why using a full-sized keyboard (which is
what the PS2 port is for) should cause a problem with
the built-in keyboard.  But it seemed to, and I had to
replace that built-in keyboard.

Jerry

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Jerry, are you trying to frighten a nervous man ? I'll pluck up courage, keep things crossed and try your suggestion, after all whats to lose? Many thanks. Paul.


On Thursday, December 13, 2007 at 12:30 pm, Jerry wrote:
>I'm going back to "hardware issue" with the
>keyboard.
>
>You might try plugging a standard 101 keyboard
>into the PS2 connector on the back of the laptop
>(while the power is off). See how it behaves in real
>DOS.
>
>I've hesitated to recommend trrying this before,
>because this is what I was doing when I blew out
>my first laptop keyboard -- which behaved exactly
>as yours is behaving now. Nobody was ever able
>to explain why using a full-sized keyboard (which is
>what the PS2 port is for) should cause a problem with
>the built-in keyboard. But it seemed to, and I had to
>replace that built-in keyboard.
>
>Jerry

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