Does the little clock at bottom right of screen keep time and date OK ? Im just guessing that the little coin battery that keeps track of the cmos/bios settings for the hardware has failed.. that's why you see I/O, hard drive, and why the keypress didn't work.... from what you have said. Needs that motherboards $2 big watch coin battery replaced maybe.. That battery also keeps your time and date correct. So if you are seeing the time and date frequently incorrect... you need to change that battery. Pretty simple. This post was edited by mikie on Fri, Jan 4, 13 at 17:29

Did you check in the keyboard settings in control panel as was mentioned earlier? If not that is definitely one place to be looking. I might look in device manager for any obvious problems and also in even viewer for red alerts. I still definitely think it is that the keyboard shortcuts are turned on and set up. Try this hold the NUM LOCK key down for several seconds that should toggle the keys on and off. On a laptop often the numlock pad is the problem so try turning it off and on etc to see if you get any results. Some laptops have the action and function keys set up with special actions also. You can check your specific model of laptop online or in the user manual to see if that is what is happening. check these for possible options to try Disabling the Windows Key on Microsoft Natural Keyboard Disabling Windows Keyboard Shortcuts this page has a ton of info for your laptop not sure if it covers this but you may want it as a resource Dell Inspiron 6000

Hi guys, sorry for being a bit tarrdy in getting back to you, but I have been busy painting, in between trying to find out what caused this problem. What I have done so far is a couple of sytem restores which unfortunately,did not cure the problem. Checked the events log for errors or whatever, prior to using or after ccleaner. It shows "warning" re installer and "error" re, installer on the evening of 4th June. No details on what the warning or error is about? On the sytem restore, I went back to the 4th, June, in the morning. This puts everything back to where it was before these warnings etc, came up on the events log. Uninstalled Java and re-installed latest version......verifyed instal;lation...okay. Problem still there! There is no error message just the pop-up box with Windows Installer printed on a blue background along the top. Below is the message, "Preparing to install............. Below that in the bottom right corner is the cancel button. It does not ask that any action be taken or for a CD or anything else. It just sits there for around 20 seconds then drops out.Or it will drop out and come back up again two or three times. Each time it drops out, I can hear the hard drive "grunt". At least I think it is the hard drive thats "grunting"? [It can't be happy with this situation either!] As soon as it drops out for the last time the site or file that I had selected/clicked on comes up. It has me stumped! "Horton"

Google this perhaps you can find a solution "enter network password"