Keyboard failure at boot and slow computer

Question

I am working on a dell dimension 2400 running windows XP home addition with 512MB of RAM ( one board) that had a significant amount of registry, spyare and anti virus problems all of whick have been resolved to the extent that pccillian, registry mechanic and spyware can resolve. The computer continues to have two problems   1. during start up the computer will recognize the F2, F12 command, but locks the keyboard and does not allow for the menus to be accessed. To date I have a. poped the battery on the motherboard. Unplugged it and held the on button to drain the charge. That resets the clock but nothing else b. removed all of the cards, memory disconnected the drives and reconnected all. c. tried four different ps/1 and USB keyboards. The microsoft wireless mouse and keyboard is the only one that works. the ps/1 and USB keyboard lock at the splash screen with continous beeping ant GYYG showing. If allowed to boot to windows with the wireless connected all lights are green. d. I have put a system disk in the A drive to attempt to bbot to a diagnostic disc. It reads the A drive and asks that a key be touched to boot to the disk, but the keyboard is locked.   2. When it does boot to windows it runs exceedingly (painfully) slow. Is there a file that I can access to see what is loading at start up that is tying up the memory and possibly a webb site that I can access to find out what shouldn't be running.   3. Although I've deleted all of the cookies and history, the computer gets attacked immediately when I go online.

x_lab rat · Answer

Colloquially, if you have roaches under your whole carpet, a couple cans of bug spray isn't going to get rid of them.  A heavy infestation of malware is statistically likely to contain one bug that can evade commercial 'fix' programs.  If you can get the hardware working, wipe the drive and start over.  The 'debug' procedure is not often necessary but in this case I bet it is--if the 'disease' scrambled the hardware, it very well could have scrambled the sub-boot sector too, and that's not overwritten with a standard WXP install.  Sorry I don't have the link--anyone?  If you don't debug, don't install that drive in any other system or the same (no keyboard) fate could befall it too.   You're saying that F2 or F12 brings up menus, but from that point on all keyboards are unresponsive until you get to WXP and the wireless starts working?  It's not an outright hardware failure, or the keyboards would never work at all.  The most insidious viruses can alter BIOS, sometimes rendering the motherboard useless.  BIOS can also corrupt itself--an infrequent artifact of flashrom, where it's stored.   Reflashing BIOS is required, and a working standard keyboard is required to do that.  It doesn't respond to BIOS reset.  I think the system just became eligible for Dell's free recycling program.   Anyone know another option?

vpresley83 · Answer

Hi        Almost sounds like a MOBO problem thown in for good measure.  The keyboard also has a controller on the MOBO.  If its wacky, could explain the keyboard problem.  As of yet I have not heard of an actual BIOS virus that has infected a computer.  Corrupt BIOS yes, virus no.  If possible, see if you can boot from the Win CD.  If all else fails, try installing a new hard drive and using a boot disk, If you have that capability.  You would then know if its the HD while booting.  Not hard to plug in a new drive, just make sure the jumper is set the same as the original drive.  Sounds like a tough problem, changing the HD would let you know quickly if you have a bigger problem.                                                                        Vince

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Keyboard failure at boot and slow computer

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