Windows XP won't recognize keyboard

[W4MAJ]

This one doesn't make sense to me at all. I have a computer running Windows XP that won't recognize its keyboard. I can enter the password on the login screen. That would seem to rule out a possible hardware issue.

When I open a program like Microsoft Word and try to type, nothing appears on the screen. This is the same with Notepad. A "beep" comes from the tower each time a key pressed.

Under the Task Manager, there are no applications running that would be hogging up the RAM. The are no hardware conflicts. I re-installed the keyboard driver. I also un-installed a lot of games.

The computer is not currently on the Internet.

And for good measure I defragged the hard drive and used Windex to clean the White-out off the monitor.

What have I overlooked?

[KD6NIG]

Is the keyboard going into the standard keyboard hookup, or is it wireless?

Make sure its not reversed with the mouse http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[k3wrv]

Do you have a stuck key? Had a similar problem with a Win98 box.

[W4MAJ]

Good questions. The keyboard has a standard PS-2 style plug. I hadn't considered a conflict with the mouse. I'll unplug it and see if that makes a difference.

Any other ideas?

[WD8OQX]

As "NIG" stated - make sure you have the keyboard plugged in where it is supposed to be & the mouse where it is supposed to be. Reversing them in MOST cases causes problems big time.

[W4MAJ]

I guess I just needed to ping this problem against a few folks who are smarter than I am.

I doubled checked the connections and they were all good. There were no buttons stuck on the keyboard. The problem was software related. Once the offended box was "unclicked" the problem was solved.

Thanks for making me THINK!

[WD8OQX]

What was the "offended box" that needed "unclicked"?