Head Scratcher: Keyboard won't work

J

jlr

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Hi Everybody

I have a old PC, P3, that I am busy fixing and have a problem with the keyboard. First of all, when I boot up, the bios tells me, I must press F1 to going into the BIOS setup. BUT, the keyboard does not work, when I start the pc, the lights go on, on the keyboard, but it does not work.

The strange thing is, if I insert a USB keyboard, and press F1, nothing happens, but if I press ctrl+alt+del, the pc restarts. What can be the problem? I know the keyboard works as I have tested it on another machine. I have tried taking out the battery and power, to try and restart the bios settings, just in case the bios is set to USB keyboard instead of PS/2.

Any ideas?
 
It sounds like your F1 key is broken. Have you tried a different keyboard?
 
Mmmm, good point, will try that tonight, but ctrl+alt+del, also doesn't want to work. Also prior to me, taking out the battery, the keyboard didn't work in windows, when you would go to the keyboard properties, it would show no keyboard drivers. No after taking out the battery, I am in this situation.
 
Either the keyboard is faulty. Your actual motherboard is playing up or the BIOS is Mis- configured.
 
or you have the keyboard plugged into the mouse port (assuming both are ps2)

thsi does happen..
 
Just remember a usb keyboard will not work unless the bios has the option to enable usb keyboard support enabled.
I know its strange that control alt delete works.:D
First reset the bios by shorting out the 2 pins close to the cmos battery,Take a torch and really look by the battery,you will see it there.
After that press delete in or f1.There is a downside to this,If your bios by default disables usb keyboard suppport then you might have a problem,but afaik, you should get into the bios.
 
Actually gentlemen

Certain chipsets are notorious for this. A certain chip used in a karkload of motherboards, dies inexplicably leading to no keyboard, even though the lights work.

I've had this twice, and I still have both motherboards which I am investigating by replacing the chips when replacements arrive.
 
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