Hey everyone. For some reason, my keyboard and mouse have stopped responding. I've checked the connections to the computer; it should be connected but is not responding. It was working fine a few days ago. The keyboard lights (for num lock, caps lock, scr lock) blink for a second when I plug the keyboard into the computer, but then go out. I press num lock, but the light does not come on. I've tried other keyboards, but it does the same thing. I was assuming since the keyboard and mouse were connected to the same thing in the computer, it was not the keyboard... It does work on rare occasions though, but when it does, itll work for a while, but then it simply goes berserk; when I press backspace, it might type out something like 331`97211 ... There's not much of a problem with my mouse, other than if it boots up w/o my keyboard working correctly, the mouse won't respond either. What can I do?

Weezcake (by weezcake), seems to me that you are faced with a varity of possibilites here. Might be a virus. Might be a bad/missing driver. Might be a defective keyboard, etc. If I were you, think the FIRST thing I would try is restore. Maybe you can simply go back to a date when all worked properly. If that fails to solve the problem, I would suspect a virus next (some can be REALLY hard to clean). Driver next and defect last. HTH. Ed in Texas.

Unless these are a USB mouse & keyboard you shouldn't be plugging them in and out when the PC is switched on as it can fry the port. Whatever the cause it sounds like the ports on the motherboard could be damaged. If your mouse & keyboard use round PS2 type connectors can you test PC with a USB mouse/keyboard?

IF you can boot into "Safe Mode", do the following: 1)While in "Safe Mode" run your antivirus program and make sure you have no virus(es). 2)While in "Safe Mode", run "ScanDisk" to check for errors on drive. Assuming the above presents no problem: 3)go to device manager and check to see if there are any "question marks or exclamation marks" (etc.) that maybe presents a problem under entry "keyboard" and "mouse". I'll explain the following just in case you didn't know: Windows Millenium Edition attempts to provide you with "generic" drivers. Their attempt is made to at least get you up and running thereby allowing you to at least access your computer. Sometimes these "generic" drivers work well and sometimes they don't - but as I repeat, at least you have some access - you may be up a creek without them. A suggestion is to, always install the original "driver" that came with a particulr product as it is intended to directly conform with operating system(s) in which it should specify. At this point and in this order, I would remove the entry/driver UNDER "Keyboard" in Device Manager - Just merely LEFT click on the + sign beside "Keyboard" and RIGHT click on the entry/driver then LEFT click "REMOVE". Do the same with regard to your "Mouse" - thus removing your Mouse/DRIVER as well. Then RESTART your computer and let windows reinstall the drivers. IF your keyboard and mouse still doesn't work properly at this point, return back to device manager and install the drivers that came with your keyboard and mouse. You should install the original driver that came with your product anyway. If you don't know how, post back. REMEMBER: Close all running programs on toolbar BEFORE installing software/driver. When using "CTR + ALT + DEL" method, close all EXCEPT "Explorer and Systray".

I'm guessing its the motherboard, since now it doesn't seem like its able to get past the HP loading screen (the one that comes up before windows loading screen) If the motherboard is damaged, can I get it fixed some how?

Well I was thinking, and I was thinking that it was maybe the keyboard/mouse ports that were causing my problem. Since its not working...my computer doesn't seem to be able to boot up to Windows - Usually, anyways. On those rare occasions that it DOES boot up, it brings me to my desktop and everything is there; so I'm sure its not a virus. Is it weird for it to fail to boot up because something is wrong with my keyboard/mouse ports (and possibly my motherboard)? And also, is it possible to get a keyboard/mouse port fixed?