I have an Inspiron 4000 which has been running perfectly until recently. The only thing that was added was AOL for another unauthorized person (messing with the Pc) I uninstalled it. The laptop's keyboard is irratic, it freezes, it will now only start in safe mode with no options...I spoke with Dell techs for three hours , they are stumped . I hooked up another keyboard,nothing changed. It acts like when given a command it gets mixed up and does something else...Tried system restore,,,no help..Anyone have an idea what happened here or what it could be....thanks

Try using your start up floppy disk at a prompt type scanreg/restore then hit enter. Choose a date prior to this unauthorized person (messing with the Pc). Hope this helps.

Any problems listed in device manager? Not sure what you have starting up but you can use msconfig to disable the programs from starting up. Does the keyboard work fine in safe mode?

hello do start,search,type aol and delete them. you might need to clean them out of the registry allso but first try the scanreg /restore that above poster sujested all se check in recent and see what else was done

The keyboard does not work properly in Safe Mode, nor will the pc complete commands. Nothing shows in device manager. All Aol files have been deleted. I had a tech look at the laptop yesterday. He "thinks" its a faulty chip in the keyboard functions on the mother board. I find this a bit difficult because it started suddenly at the time of AOL being installed. The pc is one year old Does anyone agree this could be the mother board and is there any suggestions as to where to have it checked short of sending it to Dell. assuming the price for repair would be extreme. Amelia

Try downloading a program called PC Check SE it should also work on a laptop. You use it as a boot up floppy disk then you can check all your PC hardware including Keyboard and keyboard controller.